Project Mistless
by Christopher Kimson
Summary: The Mist has suffered a catastrophic failure, and nobody knows why. In the ensuing chaos, stuck in the middle are the demigods, and they must soon come to terms with their whole lives being under scrutiny of the mortals.
1. Chapter 1 Mortal Surprise

Chris Kim

(Author's Notes)

Hey there people of the internet! I'm Christopher, Christopher Kimson, and this is my very first attempt at a fanfic story! Yay for me! Anyways, I've had this idea bouncing around in my head for a REALLY long time now, and decided to have a go at it! Recently I've been trying to find a story where the mist suddenly fails in the Percy Jackson series, but all of them are either too short, or too poorly written in order for me to properly enjoy them and none of them addressed the political or social consequences/ramifications such an event would have on the fictional world of Rick Riordan's story. So I've decided to take matters into my hands, and write up my own story of the accounts of Percy Jackson in a world without the Mist!

Also, I've always wondered why mortal weaponry would not hurt monsters in anyway shape or form. I thought that if Percy can drop a bowling ball on a couple of Gorgons and kill them (as stated in the book Son of Neptune), then why can't a standard frag grenade completely shred a monster apart? So, in order to give the mortals a fighting chance, the monsters will have insane regenerative abilities, but anything with a big enough boom to fully vaporize a monster will have that monster stay dead. Regular bullets will still be ineffective however, and celestial bronze weapons will still be much more useful in the sense that where it would take several anti-tank rounds to put down a cyclops, only one good stab from a sword is needed to completely disintegrate it. Anyways, enough ranting for me, so enjoy the story! (reviews and comments are greatly appreciated as well)

* * *

Hecate was brooding in her chamber. After the defeat of the Giants she had to work overtime to keep the mortals from noticing anything strange going on. Sighing, she was about to vanish elsewhere to perform more duties when she suddenly felt a cold presence enter her room.

"Who's there! How dare you enter my room without my consent!" as she stood up in indignation, she suddenly gasped when she saw who was at the door. Quickly trying to summon a spell, all she managed to squeak out was half a word before the room was plunged into darkness.

Her screams were never heard.

* * *

New York City. The largest of its kind in the world, the center of Western Civilization as we know it. But what the mortals don't realize is a whole other world right in front of their eyes, and they can't see it. Thats right. What I'm about to tell you is crazy, but it's pretty much the truth. Gods and monsters exist. And the center of the Gods power? You guessed it, Manhattan.

You see, the gods follow western civilization, first originating in Greece, then to Rome, and so on and so forth, until they ended up in the good ol United States of America.

My name is Percy Jackson, and if you're reading this, well, I guess we managed to save the world. Again. If not, then sorry for wasting your time, and enjoy life in the underworld.

I'm sure you know all about our stories and the countless power hungry deities we've had to face down in the past. Kronos and Gaia to name a few. The latter war having just ended a few years ago. During the subsequent clean up, I had asked Annabeth "So, what else could the universe throw at us?" (My fiance by the way.) The words just came right out of my mouth without me even realizing it, and from the horrified look on her face, I had just realized the stupidity of what I just said.

You see, you never, EVER, tempt the Fates, period. Past experience of doing so usually ended up with wrecked property on a massive scale, and lots of dead mortals or demigods. But seriously, it's hard to get any higher on the "Most dangerous villains scale" when you literally fought the entire freakin Earth, and I couldn't possibly think of anything else that would be worse than that.

I bet the universe was just laughing its ass off at me at that moment.

After the second Giant War a few years passed, and things were starting to normalize for us. I finally managed to acquire a high school degree, and I plan on moving to Camp Jupiter with Annabeth for the summer once I sort things out before setting off for college. Everything was going wonderfully. The rest of the seven have either stayed in Camp Half-blood, or those who originated from Camp Jupiter have returned back to their home there. As summer approached, I called up Annabeth, and told her I wanted to take one last walk through Manhattan with her, since it would be the last time either of us would get to see it in person for a long while.

"You know, I'm going to miss this place." I said. Annabeth snuggled in closer. We were staring out at at the small lake in Central Park, taking in the scenery on a bench.

"Why? Because of the smell?" joked Annabeth. I lightly punch her in the arm. "Ok, ok!" she laughs. Gods, her laugh. How did I forget something like that? Oh wait, Hera. Next time I see her, she's getting one goddess sized slap upside the head for stealing my memories.

I breathed in, taking in the air of the park. The sky was clear, not a cloud to be seen. Kids played in the lake, and couples like us stuck to each other, watching life pass by.

"You do know we are eventually coming back right?" Annabeth said.

"Yeah, but not for the foreseeable future." I said.

"Nice to know your optimistic."

"Right back atcha wise girl."

We've could've sat there for hours on end, just enjoying each other's presence, but then it happened. People nowadays always ask me if it started with something big, something loud and noisy. Well there was plenty of that waiting for us in the future, but that's not how the beginning of the end had started. **It started with silence. Total silence.** That was enough to put us on edge.

Then came the screaming.

Startled, we had vaulted to our feet, scanning the surroundings for the source of the disturbance. Hours of intense combat has honed both of us to be efficient warriors on the field, and taking in every detail, no matter how trivial, is the difference between life or a very painful death. Suddenly, the screaming intensified, and a crowd of people rushed past us, desperate to get away from something. Annabeth and I both shared a look, and rushed towards the commotion. In the pit of my stomach though, I already knew what was going on. There!

A cyclops was rampaging through the mortals, bashing them all over the place like a bowling ball through a row of pins. Reaching into my pocket, I was about to pull out riptide when I noticed something that froze me cold. The mortals, they seemed to actually know what was attacking them! My thought was solidified when the screams became coherent enough to understand them.

"What the hell IS THAT?!"

"Some kind of monster! Call the police!"

"Screw that, where the hell is the military!?"

I would have stood there in shock, wondering as to how in Hades did they see past the mist, if weren't for Annabeth punching me hard in the arm.

"OW! What was that for?!"

"No time to gawk! We have to save those mortals!"

"But they, how can they-"

"We'll deal with that later! Now MOVE!" she yelled as she charged forward.

I took off after her, and in moments we reached the cyclops. He was a big one, but the closer we got, the more we realized something was off about the cyclops. Its eyes were jumping wildly, searching for a way out. And it didn't seem to be going out of its way to be killing people, only batting those away who got too close. And it seemed young too. Young and confused. Must have been wondering how in the world the mortals could see him, after all these years of being ignored. But it was a danger, and we had to end it before more people got hurt or killed by the errant monster.

"HEY! OVER HERE!"

Now granted, getting the attention of an angry, confused cyclops would be a bad idea in the general sense, but you have no idea how many times that tactic has actually worked. As the thing lumbered towards me, I lifted my hands and blasted the cyclops with a concentrated stream of water from the lake. Blinded and soaking wet, it stumbled forward, only to end up with a dagger straight through its heart, courtesy of Annabeth.

"You're dead." She says. Turning to me she asked " You ok?"

"Not a scratch!" I replied.

"Ok, what now?"

That question was answered with a loud roar echoing down the park.

"Follow that roar!" I yelled.

We double timed it out of the park and into the streets of Manhattan, where the sight of hundreds of mortals running in panic mobbed us. It looked like a scene ripped straight out of some apocalyptic movie. In the distance, a hellhound was terrorizing a family trapped inside a van. We could see that it was just moments away from breaking into the vehicle and turning everyone in there into a red paste. Not enough time to reach it. So I shifted my grip, muttered a quick prayer to whatever god was in charge of badass knife throws, and threw riptide in a straight arc, right into the hellhounds skull, where it sank in with a nice * **SHUNNNK*.** It whimpered once, before it dissolved, leaving behind a tooth and one traumatized family. Running up to the van, Annabeth pried open the doors while I cut away the seatbelts.

"Everybody out, NOW! Find someplace to hide, and lock the doors!"

The family, too shocked to even notice I was wielding a sword, ran off into a nearby building, yelling their thanks along the way. Just in time too, when a mob of wild centaurs showed up. We were about to charge headlong into battle, when I was suddenly shoved aside. I looked to see who had done so, right into the helmeted face of NYPD officers. Geared for battle too, it looks like. Behind them, a squad of National Guardsmen.

"Civilians! Get behind us! **NOW!** We've got this!" yelling as he moved to place me behind their line.

But I knew it would take more than bullets to harm monsters.

"You can't kill them with bullets!" I said in a panic.

"We know! We fought these things earlier, anything smaller than a .50 BMG won't cut it! But that's why we brought these!" said a soldier as he hefted a SMAW onto his shoulder.

"Their advancing! Incoming arrows!"

Annabeth dragged me behind a car just as the arrows began thudding into the ground around us. Seriously, I lost count of the number of times she had to drag me out of danger. Two guardsmen took one to their body, but the kevlar stopped them from penetrating their vests.

"Hah! Losers can't even kill us!"

"Focus on the battle private! All soldiers, **OPEN FIRE!"**

I wondered as to how they were supposed to kill them, when they knew that their guns wouldn't do anything, when I realised that they weren't trying to kill the monsters, but herd them into one large group. Sure, monsters can't be killed by small, conventional firearms, but 5.56 NATO rounds will still hurt like hell, even with the regenerative abilities. As they guardsmen laid down more fire, the centaurs began to huddle together behind a few cars to avoid the flying rounds. The sergeant motioned to the guy wielding the rocket launcher.

"Hit em!"

"Back blast clear! Firing!" he yelled. Two clicks and a spent SMAW later, the centaurs cover was blown away, along with a few of them vaporized into dust. Many still survived however, regenerating, their essence reforming to fix lost limbs, or blown out intestines.

"Their reforming!" said an officer.

"Oh hell no! Get the grenade launchers out! **Lay it into them!** "

Covering our ears as we watched the battle, I was pretty awed by how easily mortal weaponry could put down a group of monsters. Well, maybe not that easily, one still needed a ridiculous amount of explosives to do so, but it's hard to come back to life after being shredded by thousands of scorching pieces of metal. But there lay the problem. Availability. The officers had no such explosives on them, and the National Guard had to make do with a supply drop they had gotten earlier.

"That was the last of the nades! What the hell do we do now sir?!" The leader fiddled with his radio before responding.

"We evacuate the civilians! Get them them past the G.W bridge, and into the F.O.B!" Then he turns toward me and Annabeth. "Now, who the hell are you two, and what do know about all this?" I looked at Annabeth, and she gave me the "Let me do the talking" look."

"Sir this might sound crazy, but considering whats going on right now, your going to have to believe us." She took a breathe in. "We are a people granted with certain, ah, abilities, so to speak."

"What kind?"

"Let me finish and you'll know!" she retorted. "But anyways, the main thing is that we can see monsters, see them as they are. For you, they looked like animals, or humans, but not for us. And for that reason, the monsters target us constantly. We've been fighting them our entire lives, and the only reason why they have left you mortals alone-"

"Why did you just call me a mortal?" asked the sergeant.

Oh shit, I thought. Annabeth gulped. "Well you see, that's what call humans who don't have the vision. Just a thing we made up to label regular people." I began to worry. We could have just straight up told him that we were demi-gods, but that would lead to more questions, and more time wasted, time that we didn't have. Both Annabeth and I realized that Camp Half-blood could be in serious danger right now, and that we had to get there as fast as possible. Also, I needed to get my mom out of danger along with Paul (my step dad), and I didn't feel like letting out our secret just yet to the mortals, with their reaction something I didn't want to risk our lives on. The sergeant sighed.

"I see. Well, regardless, our orders are to evacuate all civilians, so you're coming with us." Motioning to his men, he began to lay out orders. "Lieutenant, take your squad and escort these two to the bridge, the rest of us will coordinate with whoevers left to assist in the evacuation! Alright men, we're oscar mike!"

"It's fine, there's no need for that." I said. "We've got our own mode of transportation." The soldiers looked at us funny as I let out the loudest New York taxi cab whistle in my life. Seconds later, Blackjack showed up, landing on the hood of a car. Immediately rifles were lifted and cries of panic rang out.

"You summoned a monster! Somebody frag it!"

"Stand down!" I screamed out. "He's friendly!" I turned to Blackjack. "Hey there man, sorry about the guns, these guys are a bit jumpy today. Anyways, we need a fast evac to the camp, and I need to rescue my mom. Think you can get us there?" Blackjack whinnied an indignified response. "Okay, okay! I get it you can." Chuckling, I lifted myself onto him, and reached out for Annabeth. "You coming?"

"Who said you were leaving me behind?" said Annabeth with a smirk. "Not like you would last ten minutes without me anyways."

"Alright then!" I said, pulling her up onto Blackjack. I then turned to the soldiers, who were slack jawed in amazement at what they were seeing. "Remember! You can't kill the monsters without a really large explosive! Avoid fighting them if you can! Oh, and watch out for cyclops! They can throw humvees around like baseballs!" I yelled out, as Blackjack lifted into the air, leaving behind a group of stunned mortals behind.

As we climbed higher into the sky, I began to notice the extent of the carnage that was being inflicted upon Manhattan. The beginnings of several fires can be seen everywhere, air sirens were going off, and the occasional explosion scarred parts of the city. Across the river, a large contingent of police vehicles were trying to force their way into the city, while military jets screamed past. Blackjack had to make some evasive turns to avoid the swarm of news helicopters, the passengers all gaping in amazement as we zoomed past, while filming us the whole way. Great. Now I'm on National TV. Again.

I felt enraged, and pain at seeing my home being burnt and mauled to destruction, for the **second freaking time** , and I knew that for as long as I lived, that image of New York City burning would be ingrained in my mind forever. But then it all fell away, when I realized why we're covered in a large shadow when there were no clouds to be seen. I looked up.

Mount Olympus was visible in all it's glory, the golden roofs and marble buildings all shining in the sunlight, and it was where the largest concentration of military aircraft was converging on. Annabeth summed up my entire thought in that moment with one sentence.

"Oh for #%s sake."


	2. Chapter 2: The Rise of Man

(Author's notes) Welcome to Chapter Two!

Any reviews are welcome!

-Ω-

"The Gods never change. We CAN'T change. But the mortals can, and therein lies our most debilitating weakness." -Random God

-Ω-

President Hammerfield was not having a good day. Perhaps that was actually an understatement. Having to clean up the mess left behind by the previous administration and the mass scandals that followed was the cause of nearly every headache he had nowadays. Not that it can be helped, and unfortunately one can't just just whisk away the problems he had with exorbitant amounts of Advil. Sighing, he picked up the reports coming out of Syria. The Assad regime had fallen, after a massive political upheaval forced Vladimir Putin to flee Russia, leaving the Syrian dictator defenseless against the rising tide of angry civilians. Now the place had become a massive potential for a rising insurgency against the U.S, and in order to prevent that a multinational coalition force was now occupying the country, rebuilding the infrastructure and stabilizing the region.

Tossing the reports aside, he was about to call up his secretary to inquire when he was scheduled for the next meeting when several secret service agents suddenly burst into the room, two of them immediately covering the windows, protecting the president from any outside harm.

"Mr. President, we have a situation." said the lead man.

The president, startled by the sudden intrusion, immediately replied.

"What sort of situation?"

In response, Mr. Cobalt, the secretary of defense, walked in and turned on the TV. Flicking through the channels he finally landed on CNN. A petite asian woman was doing a live street report straight from Times Square, as dozens of NYPD officers in riot gear formed a defensive line behind her. And an ominous wailing sound echoed out of the smoke cloud covering the street in the distance.

"-aying that multiple reports are coming in of mythical creatures rampaging all over major population centers of the United States. Initial accounts have put their numbers in the low hundreds, but are said to be impervious to conventional firearms! Anything that is not an explosive is having minimal effect on them! I'm currently with the NYPD counter-terrorism unit, as they try and set up a defensive line against the monsters! Anybody who is in the city evacuate to the nearest bridge or tunnel if possible! If you can't make it, bunker down and wait for help! I- Oh my god!" screams the reporter. One of the NYPD officers took a spear straight through his neck, spraying blood everywhere. Then, out of the smoke cloud came a wave of monsters charging the defense line.

"FIRE! Hold them back ***ACK*** The police chief stumbled backward as a swarm of, birds? flew out of the smoke, too fast for the camera to catch, before the feed ended in static.

As if on cue, an explosion rocked the area, shaking the White House. Outside pandemonium began to ensue as a large _something_ began stomping its way down the street. It resembled a conventional dragon, but without the limbs, and was the size of a bus. But what really freaked the president out was when it looked in his direction, and seemed to _smile._ The guards also noticed it looking their way, and immediately opened up on it with their assault rifles. Which, of course, only annoyed the thing, which then proceeded to spew a jet of acid at a guard on the roof top. The guard dropped to the ground, screaming in agony until the acid ate its way through his skull and into his brain.

"Mr. President, we need to go NOW!" yelled out Mr. Cobalts, his voice shaking as the monster stomped closer to the White House, bullets ricocheting off of its thick scales. As they evacuated out to the back, the sight of Marine One touching down on the grass greeted their eyes. Running to the helicopter, President Hammerfield began rapid firing orders to Mr. Cobalt.

"I want a full report as to the current situation that is developing right now! Get every military unit in this city one deployed within the hour! Same goes for all other areas under serious attack! Get me eyes in the sky, and bring the standing DEFCON down to two! And declare martial law!"

"Yes sir!"

As they clambered into the helicopter, a series of explosions from the other side of the White House rocked the aircraft, followed by a REALLY angry roar. The pilot of the helicopter, realizing what was about to happen, immediately began to take off even before the doors slid closed. Lifting off and away from the lawn, they watched as the remaining secret service were either eaten, melted, or just plain crushed by the rampaging monster. The White House was demolished, and fires burned throughout the capital. The only good news seemed to be that, after taking a look around, it seemed that they couldn't get any bigger then that. Hopefully.

"My god. What is this?" whispered the president. He had never thought that in his entire life he would have had to deal with this, even less so as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world.

Several states up north, Percy Jackson was getting worried. After rescuing Mom and Paul, they headed to Camp Half-blood, while dodging random potshots taken at them from twitchy national guardsmen. After avoiding the first several shots, they soared higher into the sky to avoid getting hit by stray rounds. From up high they could see the clogged highways, the millions of panicking mortals, and the carnage the monsters were causing.

Down by the main evacuation point, the G.W bridge, a phalanx of heavily armored police vehicles and military units were trying to get people across the bridge to safety, as the horde of monsters slowly began encroaching its way to them, battling NYPD and scattered military personnel along the way. Sally was visibly crying at the sight of such death and destruction, while Paul kept a stoic look about him.

"Theres the camp!" said Annabeth. Blackjack whinnied, and started a steep dive. Down below, the camp was surrounded by a horde of monsters trying to get past the shield, but was having little success. But then they too were instantly rejected back into the sky as soon as they hit the magical barrier as well.

"Oh right, we need to give you two permission to enter." Annabeth said to Sally and Paul. After quickly getting that out of the way, Blackjack went and landed right in front of a large building, as Chiron trotted out to greet them.

"Percy Jackson! Annabeth! It is a relief to see you two!" he exclaimed. "And to you too." He said to Sally and Paul. After the short greetings, the group made its way to the rec room, where an intense meeting was already taking place. Seated around the ping-pong table were the heads of all the cabins, while a flat screen TV played the news in the background. Piper Mclean and Jason were the first to spot the two, and the former immediately tacked the pair in a crushing hug. Jason went for the more subtle approach, shaking hands with them as they seated themselves.

"I saw what was happening to Manhattan on the news! How in Hades did you manage to get out of there?" asked Jason.

"It honestly wasn't that hard, we've got Blackjack to evac us when the Mist fell." explained Annabeth.

"So what do you think caused this?"

"Something has happened to Hecate." said Nico, who was seated next to Will Solace on the other side of the table. When the campers were about to bombard him with questions, Nico held up his hands for silence. "I don't know why or how, but since Hecate is the one who controls the Mist, something catastrophic in nature MUST have happened to her, I don't see what else could cause her to drop it so drastically, knowing the ensuing chaos that would occur. I propose a quest to find out the location of Hecate, and to confirm whether or not something has been done to her, or if _she_ is the one doing this all along."

Several heads nodded in agreement, until Clarisse spoke up.

"But what do we do about the current situation? The mortals are panicking, cities are being burned as we speak, and our camp is surrounded by dozens of monsters!"

"We going to need more intel first, so I've taken the liberty of looking up news reports on the internet, and sourced some info off of social media." said one of the campers from the Athena cabin. "I found this. Apparently some high ranking U.S general is about to give a situation overview to the public on this channel." Dragging a video from the laptop to the screen, he began to play out the live news feed that the news anchor was presenting.

"The United States, and much of the world, is under attack by an unknown enemy force made up of what appears to be mythological creatures from the ancient past. All over the nation, these monsters just appeared out of nowhere, apparently disguised as humans, or animals of some sort. Thirty minutes ago the President and members of his cabinet have evacuated Washington D.C to an undisclosed location after a dragon of some sort demolished the White House" gasps were heard as the campers watched video footage of the attack, recognizing the beast the secret service were battling.

"That's a Drakon!" exclaimed a horrified camper.

"Gods, those poor men…" I whispered. Everybody watched as the guards were eviscerated in full HD. The news anchor droned on.

"All military assets have been deployed to major population centers to deal with the invasion. All elements of the National Guard have been activated, the nation's DEFCON status has been lowered to two, and the president has declared martial law for the most heavily affected areas within the nation. Here to shed some light on the situation, is U.S general Joseph Dunford, currently leading the military elements blockading Manhattan." The screen split in half to show the general seated in a hectic F.O.B operating room, officers and soldiers running back and forth in the background. "So how's the situation holding up?"

"Well" replied the general, "As it stands, several cities within the United States have been under attack by rampaging monsters of some sort, the heaviest fighting being right here in New York City. Although initial reports estimate the number of hostiles below two hundred, most of them are impervious to assault rifles and other such weapons, with larger hostiles needing anti-tank rounds or above to be killed. We've managed to contain the hostiles for now within the city limits, and evacuate several millions civilians, but millions more are trapped inside. There is also the matter of what appears to be a massive floating city directly above the Empire State Building. Current air assets in the area have been sent to investigate whether this floating city is the source of the monsters, but as of right now, all attempts at communications with the city have failed, and our aircraft seem to be pushed away every time they get too close."

"Is is an alien invasion?" asked the news anchor.

"We don't have sufficient enough evidence for that, but in my opinion, no. They seem to have either materialized out of thin air, while others have been disguised as humans. And none of the hostiles really seem to be coordinated, more like their just rampaging for the hell of it, so their not part of any army. Also the floating city just appeared out of nowhere. The fact that they are creatures of _human_ mythology makes the theory of an alien invasion less likely."

"What of the land battle?"

"It was tough going at first since we didn't have the availability of heavier weaponry immediately on site. The hostiles are immune to small arms fire, and the bigger ones take several hits from the main gun of an M1A1 to be put down. We've classed the hostiles in order of how big and tough they are, from class five the easiest targets to kill to class ones."

"Here" as he pulls up an image of a basilisk, "are class five hostiles. Small but quick, this particular breed of nasty is fast and can spit fire up to several meters away, and their touch is highly corrosive as well. The offshoot is that their are small enough to be chewed up by assault rifles and other small arms fire, and given enough ammo they can be killed, but estimates show that it takes about one and a half magazines of 5.56 NATO rounds to do so. We're burning through our current ammunition supplies as we speak. Explosives on the other hand do a very nice job of wiping them out, especially the grenade launchers. But it's the same problem, not enough grenades to go around. At least initially. With the main force of the New Jersey and New York national guard arriving within the hour, and a marine battalion being flown in as we speak, that will no longer be a cause for worry."

"I see." said the news anchor. "What about those class ones? How powerful are they?"

"The class ones," said the general with a serious tone "are the real threat. So far, there has been only one confirmed sighting, and that was in Washington D.C." he explained, pulling up the image of the drakon. "Although we have reason to believe that there may be a few within New York City as well, and there may well be many more class ones out there that aren't the ones we've seen in D.C. This current species of class ones are incredibly resilient to anything we've thrown at it so far, their armor plating is nearly impenetrable. They've shrugged off rocket launcher rounds like they were nothing, and only armor piercing rounds of the M1A1's main cannon or higher can even hope to have a chance at penetrating the scales. They've also shown incredible strength, and can spit highly corrosive acid that can melt through the armor of a tank in seconds. But the biggest headache for us is their regenerative factor. They heal incredibly fast, their wounds simply turning into dust before reforming. Smaller monsters need to be completely vaporized or wounded catastrophically to the point that their essence is scattered to the winds to prevent them from reforming, but the class ones are far too big for even several tanks to take down. The only downside to them is their lack of intelligence. They are easily distracted, and given a chance, can be lured into a trap. As of right now, the U.S air force is scrambling several air assets to conduct a massive precision airstrike onto the class one in D.C, where the military has managed to lure it out into the open fields of the National Mall. We are now going to see if we can finally kill it."

The camera feed then switched over to show the National Mall, where the Drakon was chasing down a convoy of military vehicles. The Drakon roared, and spat a wad of acid at the nearest vehicle, causing it to corkscrew wildly before exploding spectacularly in a fireball. The rest of the humvees scattered, and the Drakon made to give chase when the ground suddenly erupted around the monster, and it's head was violently slammed into the ground, followed by the noise that all insurgents have come to call, "the scream of the devil."

 _ **BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTT**_

"Holy hephaestus!" yelled out Connor Stoll.

"Shush! I want to hear this!" said Travis Stoll.

The demi-gods watched as a pair of A-10 Thunderbolts unloaded over 4,200 rounds per minute into the drakon, each round the length of an arm, then as a final end all move, both dropped a pair of JDAMs onto the monster, the bombs disappearing into the large dust cloud that had engulfed the entire area. A series of bright explosions lit up the mall as the bombs detonated, sending shockwaves that broke windows hundreds of meters away. And just when I thought that was it, the camera panned out to see a freakin CRUISE MISSILE streaking right into the ground where the drakon used to be.

The whole rec room was bathed in the lights of the explosion, and even Chiron seemed to be a bit unnerved as to the amount of firepower the mortals were putting into this attack. As the dust began to settle, several tanks and Cobra gunships approached the scorched earth, wary of the potential of the monster still being alive. The general leaned into his mic.

"Get me visual confirmation that the class one is dead." he ordered. The news anchor seemed perturbed, and a little shaken, at the display of such a massive amount weaponry.

"Surely it must be dead. Nothing could have survived that." she said. The general only grimaced in response.

"You didn't see what it did to the local military brigade. We lost over two dozen tanks to this thing, and nothing short of what we just pulled could have stopped it. I'm not betting that it's dead until I see it with my own eyes." He then leaned into the mic once more. "Do you have visual confirmation that it's dead?"

Suddenly, the tanks and helicopters unloaded into the dust cloud. After several dozen more explosions, the answer came back.

"We have visual confirmation that the target has been neutralized."

Immediately the room the general was in exploded into cheers. Even I felt relieved that they were able to take it out. Gen. Joseph gave a tired smile.

"As you can see, through sheer firepower, we can win this."

"Thank you General, and I hope to seeing you soon, and Godspeed."

The video stream ended, plunging the rec room into stunned silence.

-Ω-

(Author's Notes) So, how'd I do? ***ducks to avoid thrown tomatoes*** Okay, okay, I may or may not have taken some liberty with how things may run in the world of Percy Jackson, but I wanted to give the mortals a fighting chance at this. I'm running off of the belief that if Percy can kill a couple gorgons by dropping bowling balls on their heads, then I am sure as hell that a JDAM bomb would completely incinerate any smaller monsters caught in its blast. But everything the mortals have is, like I said before, horribly inefficient compared to the celestial bronze weapons the Demi-gods prefer. Where as it would take an entire squad and a couple of anti-tank rounds to put down a fully grown Cyclops, all Percy needs to do is poke at it once, and boom, it's dead. It's a compromise between what I want to do with the story while at the same time adhering to the rules of the world Rick Riordan has set up already. Anyways, I do hope you've enjoyed this second chapter of Project Mistless, and I look forward to adding more in the future! Reviews are greatly appreciated by the way!


	3. Chapter 3: Preparations

Chapter 3: Preparations

"Since when could mortals kill monsters?"

That was the pervading question asked after watching the news reel. The whole meeting was in a uproar until Chiron stamped his hooves for attention.

"Demi-gods! Please, be calm!"

"But how is this possible?" asked Clarisse.

"The monsters could always be killed be killed by physical attacks. Most of the time those usually involve them getting crushed underneath something. But my point still stands. If a boulder can banish a monster to Tartarus, then mortal weaponry will do just fine, but it's horribly inefficient." says Chiron.

"That must be how all of Manhattan fell to only a hundred monsters." muttered Annabeth. "Their just too resilient for anything less than a really big bomb to be taken out, the bigger ones at least."

"We get that Annabeth, but what do we do about the monsters gathering outside our camp?" asked Piper.

"We'll have to clear those out first." I said. "Once their gone, then we can focus on helping out the mortals." Turning to Chiron, "What of the Gods? What are they doing?"

Chiron let out an exasperated sigh. "Oh, the usual when faced with an uncertain situation. Staying silent." Groans emanated from the campers.

"How long until they finally decide to do some helping out for once?" complained Travis.

"What they decide what to do is not up to us, all we can do is deal with the situation as of right now." I state. "Get everybody geared up for battle. Once we deal with the monsters at our doorsteps, then we decide our next move." As the camp leaders filtered out to warn their respective cabins of the coming battle, I turned to Chiron again. "Have you heard anything from Camp Jupiter yet?"

"No, I haven't had the time to check on them."

"Right, we'll just have to Iris message them. Annabeth, sprinkler."

"Gotcha." she replies, grabbing a nearby garden hose and setting it to the mist setting. "We're good to go."

"Ok, now all we need is a- damnit! I don't have any drachmas on me."

"Here, I have one." Chiron hands the golden coin to me.

"Alright, here we go. Oh goddess, accept our offering." I mutter, flipping the coin into the spray. "Camp Jupiter, Reyna."

The mist wavered for a second, then solidified, to show us the startled face of Reyna herself. Its pained however, and the sounds of battle could be heard in the distance.

"Percy Jackson." she says with a tired smile. "Just the person I needed to see."

"Whats wrong? And is that a battle I hear in the background?" Reyna sighs.

"Yeah, with the mist gone, the monsters are rampaging throughout the city. Given there's not that many, but that's relative when you've fought an entire army. Needless to say, there's enough to give the mortals some serious trouble, and some of the bigger ones have started to target our camp. We're holding them back for now though, it's no big deal at the moment. So how are things on your end?"

"Yeah, we've got about a dozen monsters banging on our front door right now, nothing we can't handle though. Are you going to do anything after locking down your camp?"

"I've talked with Frank, you remember him?" I nod "Well, we've come to the conclusion that we should help out the mortals, so after this battle is done, I'm taking the cohorts and we're going to march them out into the city, clear it of any monsters we can find."

"What? Are you sure you want to reveal yourselves this early on? Asks Annabeth.

"We've got no choice, every second we waste is another innocent dead on the streets. Plus, it'll put us in a good light when the mortals finally find out who we are."

"Thats a good idea, I've been having the same thoughts, but I'll have to talk to the rest of the cabin leaders about this." And explosion goes off in the background and Reyna flinches. "I'll have to get back to the battle now, good luck you guys!" yells out Reyna.

"You too!" I reply. The spray dissipates.

I turn to Annabeth and Chiron.

"You guys ready?"

"Yeah, let's do this." says Annabeth.

"No time like the present." replies Chiron, as he hefts a large bow onto his back. Turning back around, we head over to the rest of the assembled campers, who have all turned out in full battle armor. I run up to the front of the assembly.

"Alright, listen up! The front of the camp is surrounded by a few dozen monsters! Nothing big, so they'll be no match for us! The real challenge will be when hit Manhattan!" People began to murmur. "Thats right! We'll be revealing ourselves to the mortals! But this is in order to give them a good first impression of us demigods! We'll start with that by helping with the counter attack of Manhattan!" More murmuring. A demigod from the Ares camp spoke up.

"But how are we supposed to get into the city? The military has blockaded all the bridges and the tunnels! What are we supposed to do, fly there?" As soon as he said that, a smile broke out on my face, and realization dawned on the campers.

"Annabeth, how flying chariots do we have?"

"About a dozen," she calculates, "It would take about five or six trips to deliver us all, but we can do so by having the first landing group establish a sort of beachhead, where they can hold out long enough for the next wave of campers to arrive."

And that's why Annabeth is the daughter of Athena. Tactical smarts indeed.

"Alright, now let's go kill some monsters!" I bellow out.

"YEAH!" they scream back.

We march over to the edge of the camp, where we see several dozen monsters waiting for us. The more intelligent ones seemed startled, like they weren't expecting this many campers to show up. We number about two hundred or so, by the way. The battle was so short that many didn't even get to kill any monsters.

"Well, that was boring." commented Clarisse.

"Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find something bigger for you to beat up when we hit Manhattan." I say. She grins at that.

"Alright! Enough looting people!" I say, noticing the campers picking up their "trophies."

"We move out in ten minutes! Grab whatever gear you need, supplies, and head out to the chariots! The landing zone will be central park! Once we've established a beachhead, we're going to have to hold it until the next waves come through!"

"But how are we supposed to clear out the whole city? It'll take us weeks!" asked a camper.

"Thats where my plan comes in," replies Annabeth, "we won't go to the monsters, They'll come to us."

"But even with two hundred demigods being in one place, how can you guarantee that we'll get 'em all?"

"With this." Annabeth says, lifting up a clear plastic bag of cellphones. Realization dawns on the assembled army. "Alright people, get to it! I'll prep the chariots, Percy, go and make sure the campers will be ready!"

"Right!" I say.

"I'll go with Annabeth." says Chiron, trotting away.

I spend the next five minutes, helping some of the newer guys get into their armor, and distributing ambrosia. Once the five minutes was up, I lead the campers towards the open fields next to the strawberry fields. There lay in formation, about a dozen chariots with pegasus strapped to them. Annabeth spots me and runs over.

"We're set! You and me are gonna go in with the first wave!" she says.

"Alright then, Ares cabin, load up!" I yell out.

"RAAAH!" The war cry echoes in my head as we life off for New York City.

-Ω-

(Author's Notes) Sorry about this chapter begin kidna short, I've been busy with school work. But I love this too much to let that get in my way, so expect more chapters by the end of this week! Any reviews are also welcome, as you support is greatly appreciated!

TheHeadCanon- Glad you liked it! I wasn't expecting such a positive reaction to my story! Your support is greatly appreciated!

wadelberry- Same to you too! Glad that you saw something worthwhile in what I'm writing!

Nutmeg12- Yeah, I always thought that it would have made for an interesting story if the mortals actually could fight back, albeit with a shit ton of explosives. xD

Guest 1- Thank you! I don't know about putting Chiron in head of the entire Armed Forces though. Thats too improbable. Perhaps more like an advisor in the future.


	4. Chapter 4: D-Day

Chapter 4: D-Day

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Things were tense as hell. We were going in fast and low to avoid getting any serious attention but it still took a lot of maneuvering through Manhattan airspace to avoid getting ourselves splattered all over civilian and military aircraft. There were so many helicopters flying all over the place that from a distance could it could have been mistaken as a really big mosquito swarm. And the center of the swarms attention? Olympus, although it appears that their efforts to get into the city are still being repulsed.

As soon as we touched down in Central Park, we've been sporadically attacked by the random monster that rambled into the park. It took about a thirty minutes for the rest of the camp to arrive, in which Annabeth began the first stage of the operation. Somebody from the Hephaestus cabin had rigged all the cellphones in the bag to send out random calls all at once, so once they were activated, Annabeth dropped the bag and we waited.

The first to trickle in were small, the quick ones who managed to get here first, basilisks, hellhounds, snake ladies, and so on. Without them arriving in bulk though, we were able to kill them off pretty quick. But then the numbers started pouring in, and they were getting bigger as well. Lumbering cyclops and giants were the biggest threat, as we found out, even some carnivorous sheep showed up as well.

But it wasn't anything we haven't faced before, and we still had the numbers. I had us stationed by the lake, so monsters were getting smashed left and right with giant fists of water. Piper was running around with Jason, the duo vaporizing monsters all over the place, and I spotted Clarisse in the corner giving the beat down on a pair of harpies who had tried to attack her. Big mistake.

Stepping out of the water, I spotted Nico wading through a group of wild centaurs, while commanding a platoon of skeletons he had summoned earlier, casually slicing through the monsters like it was just a normal day for him. Huh, knowing him, this probably is a normal day for him.

"Hey, you good there?" I yell over to him. He looks up from pile of dust he's created.

"I'm fine, go check up on Annabeth, I'll take care of the rest!" he replies back.

"Alright, see you in a bit!" Nico gives a nod, then vanishes into the shadows to pop out and skewer a giant several feet away. I head over to the command center, which is basically a hastily set up tent with a plastic table covered in notes and a map of New York City. Inside is Annabeth and Chiron, with a few other Artemis dem-gods as well.

"We'll have to cover the gap on the left here," mutters Annabeth, "Otherwise it'll leave us vulnerable to any sizable rush the monsters try to make."

"You may count on me to remedy it." Chiron says. "I'll see you on the front." He spots me as he trots out of the tent. "Percy! Excellent timing, Annabeth wanted to see you!"

"I'm sure she does, good luck Chiron!" I say in reply, as he heads off to reinforce our defenses. Annabeth sees me and wraps me in a quick hug. "Percy! It's good to see you! How's the outer line holding up?"

"Could be better, but if the number of monsters we've killed says anything, the amount of attacks should start to slow down soon."

"That's good news, if there were any more, our defenses would be hard pressed to well, defend. The casualties are starting to mount." she motions over to the field hospital, where several campers were being treated for various injuries.

"What really worries me is that there may be some really powerful monsters out there, not any of this low level stuff we've been fighting so far."

"Since when were fully grown cyclops low level?" I ask with raised eyebrows. Annabeth frowns.

"Compared to a drakon, this stuff IS low level. We'll have to prepare for the eventuality that one will show up soon. As soon as the last of the monsters-" suddenly a loud screech filled the air. We look at each other, then dash outside to meet the sight of chaos. A giant crab the size of truck was smashing its way down the street, bashing cars and crushing them out of the way.

Chiron and those from the Apollo cabins tried taking it down with a hail of arrows, which just bounced off the heavy shell like it was nothing. It screeched again, then picked up a minivan and tossed it at us like it was a beachball. Dodging to the side I just managed to avoid the impromptu projectile, which hurtled into the lake behind us.

"Ha, thing can't hit the broadside of a barn if it tried!" I said to Annabeth. No reply. I turn around to see her laid flat out on the grass, eyes closed and her face covered in blood. "Annabeth!"

I scramble over to her side, but before I can check on her, I notice the giant crab screeching and scuttling straight for me, knocking over a bunch of campers and smashing two against a tree, the sounds of bones cracking audible even from a distance. Looking down at Annabeth's still form, I become enraged.

"YOU WANT TO DIE!? **COME GET SOME YOU OVERSIZED CRUSTACEAN!** The thing screeches in reply as I rush towards the monster, pincers and swords clashing in the most heated and spectacular battle of the day.

 **F.O.B (Forward Operating Base) Fort Lee, New Jersey:**

"Sir, the rest of the national guard has arrived, and the 5th marine battalion has just rolled into camp as well."

General Joseph Dunford acknowledged the lieutenant with a curt nod. "Tell the new arrivals to situate themselves, and give 'em the the game plan as well. We'll be retaking the city in ten minutes."

"Yes sir!" the LT. quickly leaves to relay the orders to the rest of the arrivals.

General Dunford turns back to the tactical screens set up in the tent. It's been several hours ever since they lost control of the city, but thank god that those, _things,_ can't swim. With enough firepower to level half of Manhattan pointing at all bridges and tunnels leading in and out, the rampaging hostiles were confined within the city limits, while anything trying to fly out was immediately taken down with the plethora of javelin missiles they now had. And anything that had flown out before the missiles shown up were being hunted down by a roaming pack of Cobra attack helicopters.

He rubs his forehead, still feeling incredulous to the whole situation, this all feels like some script to a cheesy monster movie, even though they _were_ fighting monsters in the first place. He shook his head to clear it. No matter, this is real life, and people's lives were on the line here. He glances at his watch. Time to give the word. He motions to a nearby radio man to hand him the mic.

"This is General Dunford, repeat, General Dunford! Operation Extermination is a go! All ground elements assembled on the 9W highway are to converge on the entry point to the G.W bridge! I want the tanks in the front, LAVs and infantry are to provide support and to put down any hostiles that make it past the armored divisions! Once we establish a foothold in the city, we're going to clear the streets block by block. You will have helicopter gunships giving air support as you go along! We're going to make these things pay for spilling our blood, and we'll send them crawling back into whatever hell hole they came out of!"

A chorus of "Roger that" and "Copy" spilled out of the headset, as the sound of hundreds of armored vehicles rolling down the street shook the ground and rattled nearby windows. A mood of vengeance was in the air as the column rumbled down the bridge, that and apprehension as well. A pair of F-16's flew in low, wagging their wings in salute before jetting off into the distance.

Behind them, two dozen apaches and cobras took to the skies, flying overhead and zooming to the city, the sound of their chainguns echoing down the bridge as they engaged the creatures. It was truly an epic sight that General Dunford would not forget for a long time.

"Sir! You need to see this!" yelled out an operator. He was part of the group that controlled the drones flying in sky, and was currently monitoring the ensuing battle down below.

"What have we got?" Dunford asks. The operator scoots over to give the general the full view of what was being shown on the screen. What he saw nearly floored him.

"We have what looks like some kinda giant crab, possibly another class one on the loose, a two at the very least, and it's headed to central park. In fact, all the hostiles seemed to be headed there. What do we do sir?" asks the operator.

General Dunford immediately reaches for the mic to call in an airstrike on it, but then something nags at him. What's so important that would have ALL the monsters head to that specific location?

"Zoom in on Central Park." he orders.

"Yes sir." The image jumps in for a closer look, revealing several tents set up, and an army of, teenagers? Battling the monsters head on with what looks like ancient weaponry! He watches as they use swords and spears to annihilate their foes, and wondered what in the hell they were doing that takes a tank to do with several rounds. Anything that was pierced by their strange weapons were vaporized immediately, and a group of archers in the back were mowing the rest down with volleys of arrows.

Suddenly, the giant crab thing tosses a vehicle at a group of the teens, missing all but one. Looks like it clipped one of them. The other figure runs over to check on the one who was hit, when the giant crab rushed him. The figure stands up and charges it head one. Dunford was sure the kid was gonna get turned into a red paste, but he was surprised when the teen slides straight underneath the monster and coming out the other side.

The giant crab staggers a bit, leaving behind a trail of blood in it's wake. Huh, the kid must've sliced open the bottom. Must be its weak point. Dunford mentally shelves that bit of info away for future use. He watches as the kid clambers on top of the crab, and begins to repeatedly stab it in the head, stopping only when it turns into a large pile of dust and an empty shell. He shakes himself out of the daze he never realized was in, and activates his mic.

"All units be advised, the hostiles have begun to converge onto Central Park. We have friendlies in that park, so do NOT fire on them, but if you meet anything that attacks you, terminate with extreme prejudice." another flurry of "Roger that" and "Copy" pour out of the headset. General Dunford laces his hands behind his back, contemplating the situation.

This army of children fight like seasoned veterans, and their weapons do what it takes several anti tank rounds to do. They are obviously connected to this whole situation, and what he's willing to guess, are some kind of rival faction to the monsters. And since they seem to be protecting the civilians, their most definitely on our side as well. But further speculation can be done once he can actually talk to one of them.

He sighs, activating his mic once more.

"All units converge onto Central Park," he says. "It's time to end this."

-Ω-

(Author's Notes) Thank you guys so much for your support! The feedback has been amazing! I can't wait to get to the next chapter for you guys! As usual, any reviews are welcomed with open arms! Also send me ideas that I can use for the story if you want! Once again, thank you guys for supporting this endeavour of mine! See you next time in chapter five!


	5. Chapter Five : The Beginning of The End

Chapter Five : The Beginning of The End

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Private Finn was shaking. This was his first deployment into an actual combat zone, and although he knew that they weren't exactly going to be shot at, seeing the multitude of dead bodies laid out in the streets was enough to unnerve him. They've been told that bullets don't do anything against what they were facing, so everybody had been kitted out with grenade launchers and SMAWs. Up ahead, the sounds of vehicles getting crushed or shoved out of the way by the Abram tanks filled the otherwise quiet air.

They passed by another corpse, half of its body dissolving into a gooey pile of red and green mush. The smell was horrendous. Finn had to choke down the bile that threatened to rise to his mouth, although by the sounds of others behind him emptying their stomachs onto the pavement told him that he wasn't the only one disgusted by what he saw. It was unnerving to see the city so empty of people, the population having been ordered to lock themselves indoors and wait for the all clear from their phones, although most of the windows to either side of the convoy had people staring out of them, silently cheering them on.

Finn returned the waves he got, and focused back on the street. The radio suddenly crackled to life on his shoulder.

"This is command, all units converge onto Central Park, it's time to end this."

This was it. The convoy had gotten the message earlier that all the creatures had started to converge on Central Park for some reason. Instantly rumors were flying, even more so when they've been told that they had friendlies in the park itself.

"Hey, Finn, you have any ideas who the friendlies are?" asks a nearby soldier.

"Nope, not a clue. It can't be military, everybody had been pulled out a long while ago for this operation."

"So who then?"

"I don't know, we'll just have to see when we get there."

The soldier nods, then walks off to rejoin his squad. Suddenly a roar fills the air and a huge cyclops lumbers into view.

"CONTACT FRONT!" screamed out the platoon leader. Within seconds every barrel in the convoy swiveled to the hostile, which had charged a tank and was lifting it up with apparent ease. But then it made the mistake of letting the tank's barrel point straight at its face. **BOOM** The cyclops, missing its entire head, drops the tank and stumbles backwards, attempting to get away to regenerate.

"It's clear! Light up the asshole!"

Finn scrambles to launch a grenade into the monster's torso, while the rest of the convoy unloads hundreds of pounds of explosives into the thing. Within seconds all that was left was a pile of ash and pieces of its burnt hide everywhere.

"This is command, how long until you reach central park?"

"We're five mikes out."

"Copy that, charlie mike."

When they finally bulldozed their way into Manhattan, the sight of a young man beating the absolute shit out of an oversized crab greeted them. Behind him were more teenagers, some of them even seemed too young to have hit puberty yet. But goddamn were they doing a fine job of turning the monsters into powdered dust, although he noted that all their archaic weaponry seemed to glow a bit, probably magic swords, his more nerdy side of the mind said. Although with everything that has already happened, he wouldn't be surprised.

Panic began to take hold of the remaining monsters as they began to realize the sheer amount of firepower that had just appeared behind them tearing into their brethren. Self-preservation overrode their urge to kill people, and what started out as a retreat turned into an all out rout for the surviving monsters. Swords were splintered, wild centaurs incinerated, and a general massacre was taking hold of the situation. In one instance Finn watched a tank use it's secondary gun to bisect the legs of a some half wolf, half human thing, then ran it over as it tried in vain to crawl away to regenerate it's legs.

On the other side, those mysterious kids and their army had thrown themselves into the fray, slashing widely with impressive acrobatics and swordplay, and it even seemed like the monsters were terrified more by the kids then they were of the military. That unsettled Finn more then he would have admitted.

"Just who the hell are these people?"

 **Somewhere over the East Coast, Undisclosed location** , **United States of America**

The president wore a grim expression as more reports flooded into the situation room, located on Air Force One. As far as they were concerned, they were safe up in the sky, and so he watched helplessly as the body count began to climb it's way into the thousands.

"Gentlemen, give it to me straight. Can we win this?" he asked. One of the generals present by skype cleared his throat.

"Undoubtedly sir. Our military is more than capable of handling the small pockets of creatures that are within the major cities. Unfortunately we can't say the same for the more rural areas, and though the numbers of sightings out in those areas are fewer in number, we are going to have a harder time mobilizing our forces to hunt down these rogue elements until the campaigns to free the cities have been completed sir."

"Speaking of which, how are things down in Manhattan?" he asked. General Dunford, on and opposite screen spoke up.

"We have pushed the invaders into Central Park, where we linked up with the unknown friendlies that were occupying the place. We tightened the cordon, and with the help of our new allies, have completely exterminated the present hostiles within the park. However, we still have an unknown amount of minor monsters to flush out of the city, so armed patrols will be posted along the streets while we conduct search and destroy operations."

President Hammerfield leaned forward and steepled his fingers in front of his face. "Tell me about our… allies. Is it true that it is mostly made up of children?"

"More like teenagers and young adults sir. But what intrigues me is the way they fight. They have conducted themselves like veterans on the battlefield, as if they've been fighting like this for most of their life, not to mention their weaponry. I have already given out orders to try and scavenge some of their equipment off the field to analyse later. Whatever their made of, it is incredibly effective at dealing with these monsters. As proof to how useful they are, I have also obtained footage of a particular boy who had single handedly killed a class one."

The president blinked. "Say again? A teenager, by himself, took down a _**class one?**_ "

"That is correct sir. I have sent copies of the video to our analysts at the pentagon, to you, and to the NSA. You may review them at a later time if you wish."

"At any rate, this army of teenagers have been calling themselves "Demigods", due to their claim of being half "mortal" and half "god".

"Do we have anyway of verifying that claim general?" asks the president.

"Not at the moment, but it does support the other… unusual abilities they have shown."

President Hammerfield raised an eyebrow. "Are you telling me that they have powers of some sort?" he asked. The other generals and advisers wore looks of incredulity and surprise on their faces as well.

"That is exactly what I mean. We've already identified a few candidates that displayed extraordinary abilities, although it appears that the rest have nothing obvious to show. At least, for the moment."

"Give me an example general. What kind of powers?"

"The young adult who put the class one in New York six feet under displays the ability to warp properties of water. Reports say that giant fists of water have been seen smashing the monsters apart, all being controlled by this individual."

"Another subject has displayed the ability to fly, and another one that can teleport. The list goes on and on sir."

"How are the civilians reacting to this?"

"See for yourself sir." the general tapped on his touchpad, and another scene popped up. The president leaned forward. In the screen was central park, but what was happening in it was quite interesting. A crowd of people was being held back by a military cordon as they cheered at the demigods.

"Civilians have been calling them the saviors of Manhattan. Apparently a ton of people managed to videotape the battle and send it into the internet. Public reaction to them has been quite positive at the moment."

"I see. What about San Francisco?" Another general, this one calling from the Pentagon, cleared his throat.

"San Francisco has already been cleared of all major threats, but not by us. The National Guard arrived a few hours ago to find a similar situation like in Manhattan, except this time the "demigods" are dressed up like the Romans. The local populace have also given an overwhelmingly positive reaction to them, although they are seriously confused as to who they even are in the first place."

"Anything else strange pop up?"

"Well, satellite imagery has picked up an enormous junkyard of sorts near Gila Claw, Arizona. The Arizona National Guard has been sent there to secure the site. Also there are unconfirmed reports of another floating island in the Colorado Springs. We've moved another satellite over to check it out." The P.A suddenly crackled on.

" **Mr. President, we'll be landing at the JFK airfield in New York City in about thirty minutes."**

"Hm, looks like I'll get that chance to personally meet these demigods. Gentlemen, whatever happened next, I trust you to take care of the immediate situation. Good luck and godspeed."

The monitors winked off one by one as the president sank more into his seat to brood. Hopefully he can finally get some answers when he meets a demigod. For now, Hammerfield wanted a sandwich. But something nagged away at him. Everything was going much too well. As a former veteran, he knew that when something went too well to plan, that a major catastrophe was just waiting to happen. He sighed, donning a headset, he began to listen to his favorite playlist to ease his worry, and drifted off into a power nap.

 **Five Miles East of Gila Claw, Arizona.**

Off in the distance, a massive junkyard of epic proportions lined the horizon as far as the eye can see, mountains of twisted bronze easily dwarfing the armored column that had been driving towards it. Command had sent an entire armored division along with elements of the Arizona National Guard to check it out. They were taking no chances, the commander thought, watching the column out of his MRAP. The twelve M1A1's they've brought with them should be able to handle any problem with ease, if they even encountered anything that even required that much firepower in the first place. He wondered why the need for such heavy equipment, for if the rumors were to be believed, the enemy didn't even have any firearms of any sort, instead relying on archaic weaponry, like the spear.

No matter, they had a job to do, although this was basically guard duty, except on a more massive scale. Their primary job was to find out what was in this junkyard and send some stuff back to the eggheads in D.C to figure it out, while at the same time keeping any curious civilians away from the place. As they got closer he noticed there weren't really any walls or fences surrounding the place. Great, this would just make his job much harder. He plucked a radio off the dashboard and clicked it on.

"This is the Arizona second armored division to CP, we've arrived at the junkyard, how copy?"

"CP copies all. Orders are to set up a perimeter guard while sending in a scout force to recon the area. Pick up anything that looks important for analysis. Watch your backs as well, we don't know if that place contains hostiles or not. Drones have also been sent to provide aerial reconnaissance, how copy?"

"Copy that. We'll report back when we find anything useful, out."

As the orders were given out and soldiers disembarked, the platoon leader stepped over to the side to check out a pile. It seems like it truly was a junkyard, except that everything was made of some sort of bronze. Many have also begun to notice that the majority of the piles also seemed to be made up of the twisted remains of robots of some sort, ranging from the size of golfballs to as tall as a house. They all seemed pretty dead however, but the empty eye sockets unnerved the men, causing them to look around more cautiously, gripping their weapons in comfort. A humvee was loaded up to do a deep recon of the area, and it drove deeper into the yard.

A national guardsmen flicked his eye to the side, catching the image of a figurine of a beautiful looking woman, as big as a chess piece. Looking around to make sure nobody was watching, he quickly snatched the piece off the pile it was on, and stuffed it into his combat vest. This would make very nice collection to place on his shelf back home.

Deep in the junkyard, a mountain sifted.

-Ω-

 **Annnnd that's done! So sorry for the long wait, I was busy with school finals and such, but I've finally managed to push one out! Hope you guys liked it! Oh, and do please leave a comment or two, I really appreciate those reviews!**


	6. Chapter 6: Revelations

Chapter 6: Revelations

-Ω-

I don't think we've ever kissed this intensely in our life. After the battle had ended I had immediately rushed over to the medical tent to check up on Annabeth, with the very real fear that she might actually be (gods forbid) dead. Watching the love of your life getting hit in the head by a flying car would do that to you. All that vanished instantly away when I saw her sitting upright, bandage wrapped around her head, and arguing with one of the Hermes medics.

"-and I'm telling you, I need to be out there! I can't just-" she spots me rushing towards her. "Percy!"

"Annabeth! You're ali-MMMmmmmmm."

Her lips locked onto mine and we just stood there, hugging each other tightly, oblivious to the outside world for a few blissful seconds. Kronos could have come back from the ether and blasted the world to bits at that moment and I still wouldn't have cared. But all things must come to an end, in this case, in a very loud cough.

"Ahem, 'scuse me for interrupting this moment of yours, but your girlfriend over here needs to take slow for the next few hours!"

We both look to our left to give the offender a scathing glare, only to see that glare thrown right back at us. Standing in our vision was the Hermes medic from earlier, but he was looking pretty sheepish at the moment. And he was a boy. The voice that had interrupted our moment belonged to a female, and that particular female was standing to the right of the Hermes demigod. That was when I noticed that she wasn't dressed like a demigod. At all. Hugging her slim frame was the attire of the United States 5th Marine division, rifle slung across her back. If I had to guess her age, it would be around the mid twenties. Her helmet was off to reveal an angled, worn face of asian descent, weathered by hours of combat, along with close cropped, brown hair, and eyes that blazed with such determination that if she was a goddess it would have had mortals bursting into flames ten feet away. And those eyes were pointed straight at us.

"Ex-excuse me, who are you?" I asked.

"Sergeant First Class Varita Lee, United States 5th Marine division corpsman!" she barks out. "I've been assigned to assist with your medics! So until I say otherwise Annabeth, you're getting back in bed!"

"I'm completely fine ma'am! I need to be out there coordinating our forces in the battle!" Annabeth says, trying to stumble to the tent flap leading outside, before wobbling a bit and collapsing. I manage to catch her before her face decided to meet the pavement.

"You are not fine, now get back in bed before I have to strap you down so you don't hurt yourself!" Varita said menacingly. Although there was a glint of amusement in her eyes that I caught. Annabeth tried to reply, then lost the fight to stay conscious and passed out. As I lay her back down on the medical cot, I give a worryingly glance to Varita.

"Is she going to be fine? How bad are her injuries?" I ask. She pulls up an Ipad and scrolls down the screen a bit.

"She suffered a fair bit of head trauma. There might be a hairline fracture along her skull, along with a concussion to boot. What did she even get hit by?"

"A flying minivan." I reply wearily. Varita looks up from her Ipad with a look of incredulity on her face. Seeing that I wasn't lying, she looked back at Annabeth's sleeping form with newfound respect.

"If that's true, then she's lucky to even have her head still attached to her neck. Must be one tough son of a bitch." I was about to reply when another soldier rushed inside. Looked like he had ran all the way here in a hurry.

"Is there a Percy… Jackson in here?" He asks.

"I'm him, can I help you?" I say. His eyes widen a bit at seeing me.

"You the guy who killed the class one?"

"Yeaah?" I hesitantly say.

"Holy shit, it's an honor to meet you sir!" he exclaims exuberantly, grabbing my hand and shaking it. "The guys and I watched you take that thing down, incredible! I've never seen anything like it!"

"I uh, thank you, uh, sir." I stammer. Varita suddenly steps in.

"Get to the point private, why are you here?" she says. She seems to enjoy interrupting conversations quite a lot. The private straightens out a bit.

"We got word from up high that the _president_ himself landed in the JFK airfield just ten minutes ago! He's flying in right now by helicopter, and he wants to meet the man who killed the class one personally, along with anybody else he'd want to bring with you."

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. It's not everyday that the commander in chief of the nation you live in wants to see you.

"Alright, give me five minutes to gather some friends of mine, and Varita," I say, turning to her.

"Hmm?" she says.

"Take good care of Annabeth, and the other wounded as well." I say. She just looks at me with a lopsided grin on her face.

"I'm a medic, it's my job, sir." she replies. I grin back at her.

"Alright then, if you're all good, Mr. Jackson, be sure to be in the clearing by the lake in about five minutes." the private says.

"Please, just Percy will do fine!" I reply as I run out of the tent. Quickly scanning the crowd, I spot Piper and Jason to the side, talking with Chiron. They wave me over as I jog to them.

"Percy, good to see you man, how's Annabeth holding up?" Jason asks.

"Annabeth is fine, just dealing with a concussion is all. But I need you guys to come with me right now." I say.

"But why, what's happening?" asks Piper with a concerned look on her face.

"Walk with me." I reply. As we move along the lake's edge to the clearing, I notice a trio of small dots getting closer in the sky. "The president is coming to land here in about a few minutes, and apparently he wanted to personally meet me and anybody else we could spare." Chiron trotted along, stroking his beard.

"This could be a great opportunity to foster even better relationships with the mortals, it would only add to our image after what the local populace watched us do." he mused.

"This is so exciting!" yelled out Piper with a noticeable glee on her face. Jason shook his head.

"If all this is what you find exciting, then I'm going to seriously reevaluate our relationship." he jokes. Piper slaps his shoulder playfully.

"Now that's just not nice!" she laughs out.

As we approach the clearing, the amount of military troops began to climb. We caught plenty of looks as we passed through, whispers of the "demigods" and such. Also didn't help that Chiron was basically half man, half horse. He got caught on more than one soldier's personal phone camera. Images of us are probably already circulating throughout social media, no doubt about it. Passing through another hastily set up checkpoint, we found ourselves surrounded by dozens of heavily armed soldiers and armored vehicles. The security seemed ridiculously high for even the president. There was enough firepower here to level an entire skyscraper here, and the guards were everywhere. Piper seemed to notice this as well.

"There's a reason why the security is so heavy." She says. We look to her as we walk. "Apparently there have been more assassination attempts on his life than any other president in the history of the U.S. Nobody knows why however, his approval ratings have been pretty damn high for a 21st century president, that's for sure. And that's just for intended assassinations. He's got double the amount on his head for the number of accidents that have nearly killed him in the past as well. It's an absolute miracle that he has survived for this long." she explains.

We enter the clearing and take a look around. A black limousine sat idling on the side, with another four black SUV's trying to be inconspicuous in the background. Well, as inconspicuous as clearly heavily armored government vehicles can be. Flares have been dropped to mark the landing site, with several humvees and two LAVs providing cover.

In the distance the three dots from earlier grew larger and closer to reveal several blackhawk helicopters in diamond formation. The center helicopter, marked clearly by the glossy green and white paint job was obviously Marine One. It was this helicopter that landed slowly onto the grass, while it's escorts peeled off to the side. We waited with baited breath as the ramp lowered, disgorging several men in suits and dark sunglasses. Secret Service agents, I thought idly.

One of the men closer to the door motioned an all clear. Slowly a figure emerged from within the helicopter, blinking his eyes against the bright light of the sun. President Hammerfield. As he stepped down the ramp, all the marines in the area suddenly snapped to attention and saluted as one. The president returned the salutes before scanning the area, then looking straight at us. His face gave a startled expression for a second when spotting Chiron, before falling back into a mask of professionalism. He gave a wearied smile and started walking in our direction, the secret service protection falling in line right behind him. The rest of the marines went back to keeping a vigilant eye out for any unwanted intruders.

This was going to be one very interesting meeting.

 **President Hammerfield:**

Sometime earlier President Hammerfield woke up in a cold sweat, heart hammering wildly. Looking out the window, he could see Manhattan down below, several large smoke clouds billowing out from within the mega-city. He closed his eyes and calmed his breathing, to try and come to terms with his dream. Well, more of a nightmare actually. As he slept, his mind replayed the one scene he had locked away in the deepest recesses of his mind, one he hadn't bothered to remember up until now.

It had started out with him as a child again. His father was both a wealthy and powerful individual within the government, so his early childhood life was one of luxury. He never knew his mother, father claiming that she had disappeared sometime before he was born for reasons unknown. Shortly after her disappearance his father found him on his mansion's doorstep, wrapped in a blue blanket. His father never did stop searching for his wife, even after she was declared dead by the government. Without a mother, his father had to hire people to take care of him, since he was away most of the time with work.

But then one afternoon scarred him for the rest of his life. Just after a month of him turning thirteen, a new house maid had been hired to clean out his room. But when he returned, instead of finding a cleaned out room, a sight of a half snake, half woman, a _monster_ , greeted his shocked eyes.

"Come back, have you, _massster_?" the thing sneered, before launching itself like a rocket at him, determined to swallow him whole. By sheer luck, and quite a bit of panic, he had grabbed a steel poker off the fireplace near him and stabbed it straight through the things head.

But instead of it dying like he expected it to, it just grinned a terrible, teeth filled smile, before yanking it out of it's head and tossing teenager Hammerfield across the room. He hit the wall hard, breaking a few ribs and twisting an ankle. Falling to the side, he knocked over a small dagger in a display case, shattering it across the floor. The weapon was a strange thing, a family heirloom that had sat in the family possession for time unknown, wrought of a type of bronze in the ancient greek style, it was Hammerfield's only hope as the monster slowly approached him.

Covering the dagger with his body so the thing couldn't see it, he prepared his attack. As the snake lady hauled him up by the throat, she suddenly said the the most curious thing.

"Ssshame you don't know who you truly are, your death would have been even more, gratifying. But no matter, you'll soon know your place, insssside my sssstomach!" she hissed. Hammerfield gargled out something unintelligible. "What wassss that?" she taunts, leaning in closer, "I can't hear you."

"Look down asshole." Hammerfield chokes out, before driving the dagger straight through the monster's gut. A horrible keening wail erupted from it, as it staggered away, the wound crumbling to dust. Suddenly, several armed guards busted through the room's door.

"Stop or we'll shoot!" The leader yelled out. The monster hissed at them, before diving out the window and disappearing into the woods surrounding the mansion. When the guards rushed to the window, it was already long gone.

Ever since that fateful day, his life had taken a turn for the insane. When he told the guards about what they had just seen, they thought he was suffering from some sort of mental breakdown from the assault. They told him that all they saw was a burglar beating the crap out of him with a crowbar. Still unconvinced, he personally checked the security cameras for evidence of his claims, but they too, showed the scene of a burglar beating him up.

His father had fell into an overprotective role after finding out that the only son he had was nearly killed. Twenty four hour surveillance, bodyguards wherever he went, and so on. It was incredibly overbearing, along with psychologist his father hired to make sure his son hadn't lost his mind during that episode. The shrink had told his father he was mentally sound, probably his mind just went into shock and started hallucinating after breaking several bones. But he knew he wasn't hallucinating. Nobody can make up what he just went through. But alas, even after he extensively searched years for answers, he still came up short. Not that he had much free time in the first place. But disturbing events still cropped up occasionally without any explanation. The dagger he kept however, close to him in a small box, and wherever he went, the dagger went too.

After that, nearly every month something in the corner of his vision would catch his attention. A tentacle here, strange footprints there, and so forth. He never did tell his father or anyone else about it though, knowing that he would just be sent back to the doctor for another mental evaluation. So he kept his misgivings to himself. Then the attacks began to pick up. He enrolled into the West Point Academy do get away from his father, but arriving not just a week in an oversized dog tried to rip his throat out. He managed to run to safety before it could do so. Then several weeks later, while he was browsing the internet about gorgons, a pair of old ladies had just suddenly shown up in the library and started wrecking the place. He too, managed to get away from the subsequent chaos before it reached him, but before he did, he could have sworn to god that those old ladies had tiny bat wings on their backs.

After that incident, the campus beefed up the security, with heavily armed soldiers occasionally patrolling the place. After graduating with a few more hiccups, he was deployed into the middle east following the aftermath of 9/11. He was twenty one at the time. During his four year tour in Afghanistan he lead his men with valor and a superior mind for tactics, so much so that some Star Wars nerd within his platoon started calling him "Thrawn" as a joke, but the nickname stuck for the rest of the time he was there. One time he managed to save the entire crew of a humvee that had been pinned down in the middle of a battlefield by using a daring flank maneuver that caught the enemy completely off guard. For that, he was awarded the congressional medal of honor.

Shortly after he returned from his tour in the middle east his old man died and left him a considerable fortune. He used his newfound money to jumpstart his career into politics, where he quickly earned a reputation as an honest, but incredibly crafty politician. Wherever he went, corruption basically became extinct, and so he had garnered quite the amount of enemies within the government, but he always made sure his allies were triple the amount. He also started up a small research team into paranormal activities, not mention the fact that he also hired the best security force you can buy with money. The attacks dropped off significantly after that, but the occasional attempted assassination or "accident" still occurred around him. He was at this point thirty seven years old.

After the paranormal activities thing went nowhere, the project was scrapped. He was too busy dealing with an impending election to worry about things like that anymore. Since nobody else seemed to notice anything strange going on, along with the absolute nothingness his pet project had turned up, he chalked it up to his brain just being weird and shelved away the incidents as nothing more then his mind making up ridiculous scenarios to deal with the constant pressure of his life being threatened everyday, although a small corner of his mind knew otherwise. Then he went and got himself elected as the nation's youngest president to ever sit in the White House.

Coming out of daze, President Hammerfield looked down to notice his right hand shaking uncontrollably. Gripping it with his left, he stilled it as the implications of what have happened today surged through his mind. Everything was different now, since now EVERYBODY can see what he sees. He didn't know if that was a good or incredibly bad thing. On one hand, what had just transpired in the past several hours would confirm that he had been sane all along, and that he wasn't going crazy. But on the other hand, with everybody being able to "see" as he does, chaos erupted and the nation he now leads was plunged into chaos, if only for a moment.

With those thoughts, he dejectedly noted that it would have been better if he had just been going slowly insane and was only seeing things of his imagination, because now the opposite brought with it the deaths of thousands of lives. Feeling the plane land, he looked out his window again to see the low buildings of the JFK airport staring back at him. Everything after that was pretty mundane. He left Air Force One and boarded Marine One to take him to Central Park. A short talk with General Dunford over his phone asking to meet the individuals who had defended Manhattan, and a helicopter trip later, and now here he was, staring at the young man who had single handedly killed what it took the military two A-10s, a cruise missile, and several tanks and attack helicopters to do.

To say he was impressed was a severe understatement. A preliminary glance showed his companions to be another younger, blonde haired male, an exceptionally pretty female about the same age as the blonde was, and a- his eyes widened. A centaur? His mind did a double take. What else would this day throw at him? He slid a neutral expression back onto his face, albeit with a wearied smile.

"Mr. President." The lead male said, fiddling with a necklace with his fingers. "Welcome to Central Park, I'm Percy Jackson, and my uh, friends here are-"

"Jason Grace." the blonde said.

"Piper Mclean here." his companion said.

"Chiron, at your service." The centaur bowed. To the their amusement the president did another double-take, but he quickly regained his composure.

"I'm sure you know who I am, so lets get down to business. Hammerfield said. He caught a look pass between Chiron and Percy, who then leaned towards Piper.

"Piper, can you gather the campers in by the command tent, I'll like the president to meet them all." he asked.

"On it." she replied, running off into the distance. Chiron cleared his throat.

"Let's head back as well, don't want to be standing here all day now, would we?" he said, turning to follow Piper. President Hammerfield chuckled.

"No we would not." he replied. Signalling to this guard detail to follow him, they trooped on over to the demigod camp.

"So, who are you people?" asked the president. "I've never heard or seen you people before. Well, except for you, Mr. Jackson. I feel like that name is familiar to me for some reason." a funny look fell over Percy's face.

"Probably because you heard about me on national television in that fiasco that happened several years ago, about the time when the St. Louis Arch got its top floor blown out in an explosion?" The President's eyes widened for the third time that day.

"You were the one who blew it up? I thought it was that crazy kidnapper of yours who did it, dragged you across the country, didn't he?" he exclaimed. The security detail grew tense when they heard that a potential terrorist was walking with them. Seeing their alarm, Percy quickly spoke.

"Oh no, I was only defending myself. Two monsters attacked me up there, and I was forced to jump into the river." Percy had to suppress a grin when the president and half his detail's mouths opened in amazement.

"Careful there Percy," Jason said, nudging his ribs, "you might accidentally kill them with the amount of mind blowingly amazing stuff you're going to have to tell them." The president tried in vain to regain his composure.

"You fell six hundred feet into the river and survived? How is that possible?" he asked. Percy sighed. This was going to be tough to completely explain.

"Well, I'm a demigod, a child of a god. Well, one of the gods at least. Poseidon to be specific. Oh, and those ancient greek gods? They exist, in fact most of them are probably holed up in Olympus right now. Thats their capital, per se, the floating city above your heads. Since Poseidon is the god of the oceans, or just water in general, me being his son means that water can't hurt me, in fact, I can control water to heal me, or use as a giant fist to smash things apart. But we'll have time for that later."

"But wait, how come we never noticed any of this before? And why now?" he intently asked. Percy pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Okay, first things first, the mist. It's a magical curtain of sorts that separates the mortal world from ours. It creates illusions to hide monsters, and make mortals like you see things differently. Only demigods and the occasional clear sighted mortal can see monsters and any other strange happenings clearly. Regular people can't see through the mist."

"So what am I?" asked the president. Percy Jackson looked at him strangely.

"Your mortal, of course." he replied.

"But all my life, I've been seeing strange things too. But nobody believed me." As this bombshell of an information dropped, they stopped walking. Chiron turned to face Hammerfield. Jason gaped. Percy had an expression of mild shock on his face. Now is was their turn to do a double-take. Chiron raises an eyebrow.

"You must be a clear-sighted mortal then. That's incredibly rare. Very few are ever born with such a gift."

The president contemplated this new revelation, stroking his chin with an intense look in his eyes. "The first time I saw a monster was when I was about thirteen…" he slowly said. He turned to look at the three, only to see a look of morbid curiosity overtake their faces at the mention of "thirteen". "Chiron, can clear-sighted mortals still be fooled by the mist?"

Chiron shook his head. "No, when your clear-sighted, you see _everything_. There is no in-between." Suddenly realization dawned on his face. "Your first monster, it revealed itself to you, hasn't it?" motioning for the president to continue on. As they walk towards the camp, he resumed talking.

"Yes, in fact, I didn't even know that it was a monster in the first place. My father had hired a new maid to clean out my room, and I saw nothing out of the ordinary when I first saw her. But later that day, when I entered my room, I was attacked by her, except from the waist down she was a snake of some sort. I managed to grab a family heirloom, an ancient dagger of bronze, and managed to wound it before security arrived to chase it off. But before I had done so, she had said the most curious thing."

Percy, Jason, and Chiron listened in with held breaths, waiting for him to confirm their suspicions. If President Hammerfield was what they thought he was, this would have far reaching consequences beyond anything that can be imagined.

"She said, _shame you don't know who you truly are, your death would have been even more, gratifying._ " he looked to the trio, who looked even more shocked than before. Hammerfield looked confused. "Why, whats wrong with what I said?" he asked.

Jason took a deep breath. "Mr. President, did you know who your parents were?" A pained expression overtook Hammerfield's face.

"Only my father, and even then our relationship was a bit tense."

"And your mother?" asked Percy. Hammerfield had a sad look in his eyes when he heard the question.

"My mother had mysteriously disappeared for unknown reasons shortly after I was born." he sighed. "My father never really did stop looking for her. Why, whats all this about?" he asks. Percy fiddled with his necklace even more. Hammerfield idly noted that one of the beads had the engraving of the Empire State Building on it.

"You see," he said haltingly, "if you were a clear sighted mortal, you would have immediately spotted the monster for what it was from the start. But you didn't, and since the monster still revealed itself to you, that means you- you're" Percy seemed hesitant to call the President-

"A demigod?" Hammerfield finished for him. "But surely that's impossible!" he stuttered.

"Probable, not impossible." interrupted Chiron. "You would not be the first. In fact, this nation's first president, George Washington, was the son of Athena, and demigod himself." Hammerfield looked like he was trying to do an impersonation of a fish at the sound of that. Chiron chuckles quietly at the sight. "But to make sure, have you ever suffered from ADHD?" Chiron asked. The President frowned a bit.

"I had a mild case of it, but it never seriously impeded me." the president was still trying to come to terms with the possibility. Him, a demigod? The very thought elated yet sank him into dread at the same time. If this was true, his entire worldview would be shattered. Although today's events have already grounded them into dust well before this revelation occurred to him.

Suddenly the path opened up into a camp that looked like it had been hastily set up. As they enter the the area, the president was awashed in the sight of nearly two hundred demigods gathered in the center, a loud rumble emanating from the crowd as they talked amongst themselves. The security detail was not very happy with the multitude of shiny, pointy weaponry near their charge. But then somebody from the crowd spotted Hammerfield.

"Hey, the president's arrived!" Suddenly the crowd surged forward, all trying to get a good look at him. Cries of people asking for a picture with him, or an autograph filled his ears.

The secret service, finally seeing something a situation they can understand and deal with, surge forward to meet the crowd, blocking them from actually getting too close. But the president waved his hands dismissively. "Let them closer, they are the saviors of Manhattan, are they not?" he said. At the sound of that, the secret service _**really**_ didn't like what he was suggesting. But with a dejected sigh the leader signaled his men to dissolve the blockade, although they all still had their hands hovering over their sidearms, waiting for something to happen. President cleared his throat, and the crowd went slowly quiet.

"I'm sure you all know about me, so let's get straight to the point." he says.

"I've been informed about the mist and the situation following its subsequent failure. Many of you now feel exposed, vulnerable to the world, to even the nation you find yourselves in." Many campers shuffled their feet, silently agreeing with the president. But what they heard next surprised them.

"That is unacceptable! You are still citizens of the United States of America, demigod or no! You should feel safe within our country, not like some outcast from a foreign nation! And what you have done today goes above and beyond the call of duty for a civilian! This failing of the mist may have brought chaos to our home's, but with it gone, two worlds have been bridged together in a way we never would have thought!" he pauses again. "Everything after today would be no different, no doubt about it, and I won't lie to you when I say we still have some difficult days ahead of us." he says softly. "But know this, as long as I'm your president, I will represent you as faithfully as I do with the rest of the country."

As he ended his speech the demigods began cheering wildly. With the knowledge that the most powerful mortal man would give his support to them, they no longer felt like the whole world was against them, that they would be mistreated by the mortals. Sure, there would be those few bad apples who would certainly reject the demigods for who they are, but for now, with the president's confirmed backing, the rest of the public opinion that hadn't already swung towards the demigods after watching them save the city would now be firmly on their side.

Looking to his left, President Hammerfield watched as Percy gave him a thumbs up, a smile plastered wide on his face. But then the smile fell away to be replaced with astronomical astonishment. Suddenly noticing that the crowd of demigods have gone silent in awe, he began to dart his head back and forth, trying to figure out why they looked at him as if he suddenly grew another head. Even the secret service looked completely baffled.

"Um, did I do something wrong?" he asked. Percy just pointed to the top of his head, a grin slowly growing on his face.

"That confirms it." he says. Hammerfield suddenly noticed that a silvery light was emanating from above his head.

"Wha- what is that?" he asks, moving backwards. But the glowing symbol followed him. A symbol of an owl. Chiron slowly took a knee, followed by the rest of the campers.

"Hail President Hammerfield, son of Athena." he explains reverently. Hammerfield for his part, was just floored by this revelation, and what the demigods were doing. The secret service was just plain confused, some of them eyeing the floating icon as if it might attack them at any moment.

"No, no, no, there's no need for kneeling please, you can get just stand." Hammerfield says hurriedly As they picked themselves off the ground, Percy approaches the President.

"I think it's time we should talk. Like seriously talk. Might want to clear your schedule for the next few hours, 'cause this is going to take a long while." he says.

Percy explained his entire past life in an abbreviated form, what being a demigod was like, and the kind of world that they lived in. He explained the gods, and how they constantly fell in love with mortals, causing them to birth demigods, half mortal and half god. He explained how each demigod inherits a certain trait or power from whom they were born from. Children of Zeus, he said motioning to Jason, can fly, and summon bolts of lighting on occasion, and etc. Well, technically Jason was a child of Jupiter. When asked what was the difference, Jason spent the next forty minutes explaining the Roman side of things. Once that was out of the way, Percy went back to talking. He explained the underworld, Titans, the two wars they went through. As the son Athena, he would be naturally gifted with a sense for tactics and leadership, two skills very prominently displayed by the current President.

"I still can't believe this is all real, that it's happening." said the President. "So rewind. You guys just fought a war against the _Earth_ itself and won? And what happened to this Leo person?" Percy's face took on a faraway look, the kind Hammerfield saw plenty of times reflected in the mirror when he contemplated about lost comrades buried somewhere in the middle east.

"Leo had sacrificed himself to destroy Gaia, and we never found his body. At the time we believed that he may have survived somehow, and that he would soon return." Percy sighs. "Two years later and we're still waiting. Damn that kid." he says with a rueful smile. "And then for those two years, life settled down. Me and Annabeth both graduated High school not long ago, and we were planning to move to New Rome, but then this all happened." he said, waving his arms around the place to emphasize his point. "Now we're here."

"And World War Two happened because of a family dispute between the gods?" he asked. Percy nods his head in dejected agreement.

"Entire nations can be affected by what happens to the gods. In this case, a family spat turned into an all out civil war. Each god picked sides and a nation to support, and went at each other. It also didn't help the fact that the Big Three, as I have mentioned from before, had demigods of their own in powerful positions, influencing the war. After that happened, they signed a pact to agree to never sire any more children since they were too powerful." Percy snorts. "You can see how long that pact had lasted." he said motioning to himself. "There's also Nico, son of Hades, and Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus, the greek side, by the way. And that's pretty much it."

The president set heavily on a plastic chair, absorbing the information like a super sponge. Albeit, if a sponge ever had a face that looked like it had been shell-shocked on it. He found his disbelief dissolving away, to be replaced with fascination about learning who he really was and how was a part of the family of the demigods.

Outside the command tent, soldiers helped out the wounded demigods, while some others played around with the younger campers. Plenty of the girls, especially the ones from the Aphrodite cabin, had been eyeing the marines and their uniforms, giggling and whispering about dashing they looked in their uniforms, while weapons specialists and combat engineers conversed with campers from the Hephaestus cabin about the finer points of machinery.

It truly was the coming together of two worlds, the President thought. He turned back to Percy to ask a question. "So what happened to Thalia? Why is she not with you guys?"

"Oh, Thalia joined those hunters I mentioned earlier, who then ended up replacing Artemis's second command, Zoe Nightshade who had ended up dying on one of our earlier quests to stop Kronos. That was one crazy quest, we even had to fight this enormous automaton that had emerged from this gigantic junkyard out in the west." Percy chuckled ruefully, not noticing the president's quickly paling face. "Apparently the junkyard was full of Hephaestus's failed pet projects, and that their _very_ sensitive about you taking anything away from the junkyard. Thing was nearly impossible to kill, and we finally ended up electrocuting it." Percy then finally noticed the pale face of President Hammerfield, the blood quickly seeping out of it. "What, did I say something wrong?" Percy asked, half-jokingly. Suddenly the President grabbed the shoulders of Percy tight, startling the demigod.

"Where did you say this junkyard was located?!" he asked in a panic. Percy was taken aback.

"Somewhere in Arizona I think, Miller crab town? Not too sure." he said, slightly worried. "Whats wrong?"

"Gila Claw, Arizona." the President whispered. "I- I had sent troops there to check it out, and specifically ordered them to bring back anything they could find of interest for us to analyze back in D.C." the reality of the situation began to settle on Percy as he realized what he had just been told.

" _How long ago?_ " Percy asked quickly. President Hammerfield looked into his eyes.

"They should have arrived at the location not just thirty minutes ago." he whispered.

 **The Junkyard of The God's, Gila Claw, Arizona**

"ALL TANKS, FIRE ON THE GIANT!" screamed a general into his mic. "NOW DAMNIT NOW!"

Chaos was everywhere. A giant bronze robot as tall as a small skyscraper had emerged from deep within the junkyard, and had promptly crushed a nearby tank into a sheet of metal. The general in charge of the remaining force had pulled back his armored units in a backward retreat, trying to lure it away from it's current destination. Las Vegas. He watched as armor piercing shells and SABOT rounds ricocheted off of the bronze armor of the giant without even making anything bigger then a dent.

The bronze giant roared, picking up a boulder the size of a house, it hurled it at a group of fleeing humvees. A few managed to dodge the projectile, but the unfortunate rest got crushed underneath. It then resumed its walk of carnage, getting ever closer to Vegas. The general grabbed the radio and brought it to his mouth again.

"The giant is headed to Las Vegas, repeat, Las Vegas! Our tanks didn't do shit to it! Call up the president, inform him of the situation, and get me those destroyers! I need them _now_!" He yelled.

Off the coast of California patrolling the waters was the USS Gridley, her commander having been recently contacted about the developing situation, and had primed his cruise missiles in preparation of an attack. Hearing the radio come to life, he quickly brought it up to his mouth. "This USS Gridley, we are armed and standing by sir."

"This is the general! Our weapons are ineffective! Launch the tomahawks captain!"

"Tomahawks are on the way sir." he said, motioning to a lower officer to commence the attack. Deep within the bowels of the ship, the fire control center executed the order, launching four missiles in rapid succession away from the ship.

The tomahawks quickly reoriented themselves high in atmosphere, before leveling out and streaked down towards their target, military GPS keeping them on track as they go. As they fell upon the giant, the general noted that they very much looked like shooting stars falling from the sky, right before they detonated one by one against the bronze behemoth. Eyes strained against the smoke cloud, trying to see if they've finally killed it.

Instead, another tank was buried underneath an enormous clod of earth that had flown out of the dust cloud. With an inhuman metallic roar it charged out and with a speed that belied its size, began tossing armored vehicles left and right. Most of the tanks at this point had been crushed or thrown into low Earth orbit. As the second in command began ordering an evacuation, the general was just horrified at the amount of destruction this thing was wrecking across the landscape. If it reached Las Vegas… he didn't want to think about it.

"Nothing can stop this thing, we've hit it with everything we've got!" yelled out the general. He was fast running out of options to pick, and none were pleasant. Until his second in command spoke up.

"Not everything general." he said darkly. The general looked at him, understandment dawning on his face as he began to realize what the Lt. was implying. "The USS Wisconsin has first strike capabilities and is not far offshore. For now the giant is in the middle of nowhere, but that's going to change real fast once it reaches the city. We can evacuate our forces away from this place, then destroy it." as the Lt. finished, a look of determination fell over the general's face.

"Radio the Wisconsin, tell them to target the robot and await further orders."

Twenty miles west of the Californian coast and nearly five hundred meters down, the USS Wisconsin got the call. The submarine quickly asked for verification codes, which it got. Then they began priming the nuclear warhead for launch. The radio operator activated the mic.

"This is the Wisconsin, verification codes received and validated. What is the giants current position?" he asked. The radio crackled to life and responded.

"Three, three, point niner eleven, eight, niner, five, two degrees north, negative one, one, zero, point four, three, seven, eight, eight, seven seven degrees west!"

As the coordinates rolled in, launch codes were inputted and the SLBM was primed and ready. The weapons officer turned to his captain.

"Missile armed and ready. All we need now is the president's authorization codes."

"Let us hope he makes the right decision." the captain said, eyes tracking the real time progress of the giant on a screen.

"God help us all."

-Ω-

 **Cliffhanger! God, I'm such a terrible person. xD This was an immense amount of fun to write! It's also one of the longest chapters of mine as well! Guess I just couldn't stop! Oh, and thank you guys for the amount of support you've been giving me! Your help is all greatly appreciated! It's what's keeping me going! Oh, and PLEASE drop those reviews guys! Any input if immensely helpful to my efforts! And with that, I will see you guys in the next chapter!**


	7. Chapter 7: Nukes and Job Offers

"You're telling me the only option we have left is to turn a portion of Nevada into a radioactive crater?!"

The general on screen flinched under the withering glare he was receiving from the president. Hammerfield idly noticed that he was inside a helicopter.

"Sir, with all due respect," began the general, "look at the timetable we've got! We wait another two hours and the giant will be close enough to the city for Las Vegas to be seriously damaged by the nuclear strike! Another hour after that and the giant will be too close for us to even do the strike in the first place without making us the most hated figures in all of American history! By that time, once the giant is within city limits it will cause catastrophic damage, with a death toll that will be triple the amount that we've already experienced! If we're going to have any chance of stopping it, it's now sir!"

"What about the radioactive fallout? Will anybody be affected by the nuclear strike?" Hammerfield asked. The general adjusted his mic closer to his mouth.

"Mr. President, we're in the middle of a goddamn desert! Las Vegas is far enough out there that any fallout would be blown away to the east long before it reaches the city. And we're not dropping any megaton warheads sir, the yield is only about twenty kilotons, small enough to not damage anything beyond its seventy mile blast radius. This is an opportunity we cannot waste sir!" The President still looked unconvinced though.

"Surely we can hit it with something else! Percy, do you know any weak points on these things?" the President asked fervently. Percy shook his head.

"The last time we took down something like this, we got lucky with the power lines, and I'm pretty sure since Hephaestus replaced the original Talos to guard the Junkyard, I'm willing to bet that it's insulated against electrical attacks now. At any rate, have you tried that yet general?" he asks.

"We've tried luring it away to one but it refuses to budge from its path! None of our tank rounds can do anything more than dent it's armor! We've tried other things as well, JDAMS just smudge it, and even the one MOAB we've dropped on site only managed to partially melt its outer layer and buckle parts of its armor! We can damage it, but just barely! We need that nuke sir! We need it now-" Suddenly an explosion goes off behind the general. The camera captures the glimpse of a flaming wreck of a Cobra Attack Helicopter plummeting towards the general's own helicopter before the feed cuts out.

President Hammerfield stiffens as the screen was filled with static. A look of conviction falls over his face as he motions to his aides. Behind the President, a colonel approached the beleaguered president with a large suitcase. Percy's eye widens at the sight, knowing instantly what it was. The secret service began clearing the room, along with Percy, who gave the president one more worrying glance before exiting the tent. He went to join the other demigods who have gathered around a borrowed military laptop one of the marines had to watch new footage of the giants rampage.

Hammerfield looked down to the plastic table in front of him, as the secret service opened the nuclear football. Inside was a built in laptop with pre-designated targets scrolling down a list. To the right of the screen sat a coordinate input option for specific targets that may not already be on the list. The coordinates have already been filled in, courtesy of the USS Wisconsin

Below the keyboard was a slot for the security key, and next to that a big, red button that looked like it was straight out of Hollywood. The button was covered by a plastic case. On another hastily set up screen, the Secretary of Defense was waiting with his own authorization codes, sweat beading down his forehead. The president turned to face the Secretary.

"Alert our allies, the Chinese, and the Russians. We wouldn't want World War Three to start on a misunderstanding." he said morbidly. The Secretary nods his head as he calls up the respective nations on his phone.

Turning back to the nuclear football, Hammerfield removed the "Biscuit" from within his suit jacket, snapping open the card to reveal the identification codes, along with the security keys. Once that was inputted the president slid in the key and turned the slot, then flipped open the case to give the launch order. On the screen the Secretary of Defense inputted his own codes, then nodded to the president. Hammerfield took a breath, a million thoughts racing through his head.

He pushed the button.

In the movies they show the missile immediately launching from its silo right after the president pushes the button. In reality, the process is less straightforward. When the button was pushed, an automatic order with it's pre-determined target was immediately sent to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The order was then transmitted over a tan-yellow phone, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Alerting Network, otherwise known as the "Gold Phone", that directly linked the NMCC with the United States Strategic Command Headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.

The base, having been alerted earlier of the pending command, relayed the order through a military satellite, which finally ended up in the command center of the USS Wisconsin. An officer quickly scanned the order as it came through.

"Captain, presidential authorization coming through right now sir!" she yelled out.

"Launch the missile!" ordered the captain. Flipping open another plastic case, the crewmember checked the codes one more time before hitting the launch button. This time, the missile rocketed away as soon as the red button was pushed.

Within two minutes, the third booster activated and the Trident II ICBM achieved a velocity of about 13,600 mph. Entering low Earth orbit, the onboard tracking computer waited until the missile reached the apex of it's flight. When it did, the computer cut out the engines and let gravity take hold of the armament, the trajectory aimed straight for the heart of Nevada.

Back in New York, and gathered around the screens in D.C, hundreds of military and official personnel watched the reentry of the rocket, breaths held, and fingernails bitten. Somehow, a news helicopter had been near the giant, filming it's path of destruction from afar, and was broadcasting it all over national television. It was from this channel that the demigods gathered outside the command tent, and the million of mortals, watched. The tension was so thick and the air so quiet that you could have cut it with a _gladius._

It was obvious to the onlookers that the news chopper was trying to put as much distance between itself and the giant, having been warned earlier by the military of the impending nuclear holocaust. For a long moment filled with apprehension, even the reporter shut up, filling the audio up with only the sound the wind. A lone roar emanated from the bronze giant as it stomped its way towards Las Vegas.

Suddenly, screens all the across the nation that were tuned in went pure white. Even Percy, who had been waiting and expecting it to happen, was still caught off guard by the sheer _intensity_ of it.

 _This must be what it's like to see a god in their true form, albeit without the whole dying part._ Percy thought. As the light cleared, the beginnings of an enormous mushroom cloud could be seen, the surrounding landscape blasted into dust and ash. At first, everybody expected the bronze giant to waltz out of the explosion with little more than a scratch. But then they noticed the rain of shiny, warped peices of was originally part of the giant raining down from the sky. A massive cheer went up at the sight.

"We have visual confirmation of the destruction of the giant sir." said a nearby aide to the President. "Another detachment of the Nevada national guard along with a larger armored force has been sent to the junkyard to lock it down, with strict orders not to take anything else until we've cleared the place." President Hammerfield sagged into his seat, running a hand across his sweat stained face.

"Thank you Lt." he said. Turning to face the Secretary of Defense on the other screen, he quickly gave his next orders.

"I want all our forces within the nation to be on high alert for anything else that may pop up, and if they do find something that appears to be out of the ordinary, they are under _strict_ orders to not disturb _anything_ until we ascertain the situation ourselves. By tommorrow I want a complete report on every location revealed to us as _abnormal_."

"Yes sir." the Secretary replied, before winking off the screen. The President then turned back to face Percy.

"I won't be here for long, this nation needs me. So I'm going to have to ask something of you." Percy nods.

"What do you need sir?" he says. The President motions to a secret service member and tells him to quickly prep the limo for a trip.

"Even with everything you've told me Mr. Jackson-"

"Please, just Percy is fine sir." Percy says. The President smirks.

"Alright then, Percy, even with your explanation, I will still need someone's expertise within this new world, well, new to me, that is, and somebody to represent the demigods at the same time. A diplomat of sorts between the mortals and the gods." Understatement began to dawn on Percy's face. Hammerfield continued on.

"I'm asking you, Percy Jackson, to become my adviser for all things mythical. Will you help me?" he asked.

Percy seemed to think about it, fingering his necklace some more. He then sighs.

"No."

"Ex- excuse me?" stammers the president. When he was about to go further, Percy put up a hand in a placating gesture.

"I can still be with you sir, perhaps to guard against monster attacks or to give some advice, but I'm just not good with the whole "diplomat" thing." Percy air-quoted the word diplomat. Hammerfield's face fell.

"But I know someone else who can."

 _ **Annabeth**_

When she had woken up, the first thing she noticed was she was back in a medical cot, a Hermes medic applying a patch of ambrosia to her head, while explaining the magical healing properties of it to a fascinated Sergeant Varita.

"So you telling me that this "ambrosia" of yours can heal demigods ten times faster than they would have naturally?" Varita asks. The Hermes medic, a dirty blonde of about fifteen years old, adjusted the head bandage, fidgeting all the while. Annabeth notices that kid seemed intimidated talking to a person nearly double his age. It also didn't help that Varita still had that blaze of determination in her eyes, the kind of look that seemed to say, " _Even if you dared to die on my watch, I will personally go to hell and drag your screaming soul back into the land of the living."_

Annabeth decided to avoid getting on her bad side for the foreseeable future.

"Yeah, you see," rambled the demigod medic, "ambrosia is like, well, food for the gods. It refreshes them. For us half gods however, they do just as well in fixing up our bodies whenever they get busted. They make for excellent first aid medical supplies. You can eat them, slap 'em on a wound, it will heal whatever's wrong with you. Well, in small doses of course. Eat too much and you literally burst into flames." Varita reached for a small pack of ambrosia to examine closely. "Oh, and I also wouldn't recommend ambrosia to regular mortals, you guys will just burst into flames as soon as you ingested even a tiny amount."

"Oh." Varita said lamely, before slowly putting the packet back down. Suddenly they noticed that Annabeth was awake.

"Welcome back to the land of the living Annabeth." said Varita. "What took you so long?" Annabeth groans.

"Getting hit by a car will do that to you." she says in reply. Craning her neck, she checks any pain. Feeling none, she faces Varita.

"Can I get out of bed now, ma'am?" she asked. Vartia absent mindly waves her hand.

"Sure, go ahead. Just promise me not to get hit by any more flying vehicular objects in the future. I'd hate to be left with only your pieces do work with." Annabeth snorts.

"I'll keep that in mind." she said. As she exited the medical tent, Annabeth was just starting to worry about Percy when he suddenly came into view to her left.

"Percy, I was beginning to wonder about you! Whats happened? We win the battle?" she asked. Percy raises an eyebrow.

"Feeling chipper now, are we?" he says with a grin. Annabeth punches his arm.

"I had some ambrosia seaweed brain. So what's happened while I was out?" she asked. Percy breathes in.

"Yeah, we won with the help of the U.S military. They showed up some time after you were taking your nap and cordoned off the park to keep any stray monsters from escaping. Their still conducting search and destroy operations in the city though, rooting out the last of the monsters."

"On another note, the President decided to take a pit stop here. Jason, Chiron and I got to meet him."

"WHAT?! Why didn't you tell me that first! Where is he?" she bursts out. Percy laughs at her reaction. If President Hammerfield's presence was enough to cause this kind of response from her, he was inwardly screaming in anticipation to tell her the next piece of shocking information. Annabeth just glowers at him.

"What?" asked Percy.

"You're holding back information Percy, spit it out!" she said. Percy just gapes.

"How did you know that?" he asked. Annabeth just smiles at him.

"Percy, we've been together for nearly our entire adolescent life. I can read you like an open book at this point."

Percy throws up his hands in defeat. "Alright, alright, but get ready, this will floor you." he said. Annabeth just crosses her arms.

"Try me seaweed brain." she replied. Percy pauses for dramatic effect.

"You have a new half-brother!" he yells out with glee. Annabeth just frowns.

"What do you mean, did we stumble on another demigod of Athena?" she asked. Percy begins to grin manically, prompting Annbeth to push even more. "Who is it! Why is he so important to you?"

"Because," says Percy, "this half brother of yours is currently leading the most powerful mortal nation on this Earth." Annabeth takes half a second to register what he had just said.

"Percy, this joke's not funny." she said.

"Nope, I'm not pulling your leg here Annabeth."

"You're actually serious."

"Yep."

Annabeth sat down on a nearby bench, eyes wide, a million thoughts racing through her head. She turns to look at Percy.

"Do have any idea what this means? Unlimited support from the mortals, no need to hide our identity from the public, the very fact that we have a demigod in the highest government office in this country means the possibilities for cooperation between the mortals and us demigods is endless!" she yells out, a grin on her face. "This will change everything!" Percy starts to rub his neck. Annabeth notices.

"What's wrong Percy? Isn't this good?" she asked.

"Well, you see," said Percy. "I don't think he really sees himself as a demigod. He's got more of this mortal mindset if anything else. I also got this sense of some sort of low key hostility towards the gods whenever I brought them up, especially when I said we served them. Kept asking me questions like, _do you have any say when they send you on a quest,_ or things like, _if the gods do anything immoral, can they be held accountable?_ Stuff like that. He also seemed pretty pissed off at thinking that the gods were the cause behind some of humanity's bloodiest wars. I had to explain to him that not all conflicts are caused by them, and that the two worlds are connected in such a way that both affect each other. Like when the Americans went to war in the 1860's, and us Greeks and Romans followed it up with our own civil war. He only seemed half satisfied with that answer though." Percy said glumly.

"Well, that's to be expected," said Annabeth. "He's lived his entire life thinking he was a mortal. Even with him finding out his mother is the Goddess Athena, I don't think he's going to feel much obligation towards her, or to any of the gods."

They both sat on the bench, thinking in deep silence about what the future might bring. Suddenly Percy leaped up and smacked his head, startling Annabeth.

"By the gods, I forgot to tell you the reason why I even came here in the first place!"

"Wha- What can possibly be more important than what you've already told me?" Annabeth asks.

"The President, he needs someone to advise him on certain things about our world, and to be a diplomat for the demigods as well. I've told him I would help him out, but he still needs a representative from us. He asked me to recommend somebody for the position." Looking to her face, Percy said, "I put your name up on the roster. If you accept, we'll be heading out tomorrow to Camp Half-Blood with the president to get some advice from the Oracle."

"So, are you in?"

Annabeth stares at him for a long time. So long in fact, that Percy begins to think that maybe he said something wrong, although he couldn't think of what he might have said that would have offended her. Just when he was about to break the silence, Annabeth rushes forward and wraps him in a tight hug, squealing with joy.

"I can't believe you did this for me!" she bursts out. "Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!"

Percy groans from her tight grip.

"You're **gasp** welcome. Ow, ow! Ribs Annabeth." Percy squeaks out.

"Oh sorry!" she says as she releases him. "It's just, this is amazing! Unprecedented! Shaping policy for an entire nation, this is an opportunity I can't waste!"

"Yes, we'll need you to have the president's favor, since Zeus is about to do something spectacularly stupid." said a female voice Percy knew all too well. Turning around, the two saw a tall woman with black hair, a regal yet stern look on her face.

"Hera." Percy growled out. "I thought you were done messing with us after that fiasco with the giants. What do you want now?" Hera looks exasperated.

"My plan worked Percy, that's all that matters. You should be thanking me for that." she says haughtily. Percy was about to step closer to Hera before Annabeth put a hand on his shoulder.

"As much as I want to watch you slap her, we still need to hear why she's hear. So just cool it for a moment, alright?"

Percy breathes out heavily. "Alright then Hera, why are you here? What's Zeus going to do that warrants you to call him an idiot?" he asked. Hera takes on a grim expression. "Oh, that bad, huh." Percy said, noticing the change on her face.

"My husband has finally decided to take action, but what he's proposing is ridiculous even for his standards. Zeus is going to break the silence of the gods by announcing himself and the others to the mortals. He seems to think that the disappearance of the mist is the signalling of a new age of the gods. He's going to try and get the mortals to go back to worshipping them like in the days of old." Hera grimaces like she's bit down on a particularly bitter fruit.

"He's a fool to think that the mortals would ever go back to being complacent worshippers without a fight. Mark my words, there's going to be a power struggle between the two."

Hera turns to Annabeth. "As much as I hate saying this, I need you to be our medium between the mortals and the gods. Well, for the gods that disagree with Zeus that it is." she chuckles mirthlessly. But enough, I'm already pushing my luck by just being here, if Zeus catches me, well…" Hera leaves the sentence hanging. No doubt Hera would be punished by Zeus if she were to be caught, Annabeth thought. Probably would involve lots of pain.

Percy steps up. "So, what do we need to do? Got any advice for us?" he asked. Hera turns to face him.

"Go to Camp Half-Blood. Rachel Dare will be waiting for you. Follow the prophecy, and stay close to the President, I have a feeling he will be needing your help soon enough." Hera says cryptically, before vanishing into thin air. Annabeth's mind was left reeling, trying to sort through all the information she'd just heard. Well, vague information that is.

"C'mon Annabeth, lets head over to Chiron and tell him about our plans." said Percy.

"Alright." she replied. After a moment of silence walking to the command tent, she breaks the silence with another question.

"I didn't know Rachel Dare was back at camp. Wasn't she at some boarding school for "Proper" woman or something like that?" she asked, air quoting the word proper. Percy shrugs.

"Probably got a dream or some kind of premonition telling her to get to camp. We'll find out when we get there." he said.

Reaching the command tent, they spotted Chiron trotting outside, a smile on his face as he greeted them. Next to him, President Hammerfield was the epitome of professional calm, bodyguards flanking him and Chiron to their left and right.

"Percy! Annabeth! President Hammerfield here has told me about his plan. I'm guessing you being here means that you've accepted?" he asked Annabeth. She nods in reply. Gesturing to President Hammerfield, she exclaimed how much of an honor it was to work with him. Hammerfield shook her and Percy's hands.

"Welcome to the Presidential team. Consider yourselves government employees from now on." he said with a grin.

"I suppose that means we're gonna get paid as well?" Percy said jokingly. President Hammerfield response surprised him though.

"Oh yes, we'll just have to sort out the contract later on, but once that's out of the way, we can start sending in the paychecks to your bank accounts." Seeing the look on Percy's face, Annabeth had to stifle a chuckle. The President just looked confused. "Why, don't you have a source of income within the demigod community?" he asked. Annabeth shook her head.

"No, not for individuals at least. We sell strawberry crops to keep the camp running, and most of our needs are filled in magic. Food can be summoned, and the camp harpies keep the place clean and tidy." she explained.

"Fascinating." Hammerfield muttered. "It appears you people are self-sufficient, with no real need for money." Annabeth nods.

"Apart from the occasional need for cash when we're out questing in the mortal world, we really don't have any real need for money. We use drachmas instead, gold coins so to speak, for trading with gods and other deities."

"Guess you learn something new everyday." said Hammerfield. "Nevertheless, you'll still be payed, out of the courtesy of my heart, and because the law requires me to." He says with a wink.

As they approach the helicopter, Percy stops. "Hold up," he says, "We've got our own ride." As the confused president and present mortals looked on, Percy summoned Blackjack again with another loud whistle. _Watching their reactions is never going to get old,_ Annabeth thought, laughing quietly as she watched Percy frantically waving down the secret service who had pulled out their sidearms. President Hammerfield watched on, a look of wistfulness falling on his face as he watched Percy and Annabeth climb onto Blackjack.

"Alright Mr. President, our camp is located on Long Island! Let's see if you're helicopter pilot can keep up!" Percy yells out. Said pilot just gives a two fingered salute and a smirk as he prepares to take off. "Alright, follow us!" Blackjack launches into the air, and starts circling around the park, waiting for Marine One to take off.

"I would like to ride one of those things. You think I can ride one of those things?" he asked his head secret service. The agent frantically shook his head no, his expression going along the lines of, _if you get on that thing we won't be able to protect you. You already make our jobs incredibly exasperating as it is, please don't make it any harder._ The President sighs.

"Perhaps one day…" he whispers quietly, as he boards the Blackhawk.

-Ω-

 **Another chapter done! Please drop those reviews, any feedback is greatly appreciated, it's what keeps me going! Until then, I'll see you guys in the next chapter!**


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